Weber State University
PA-10: Sustainable Investment

WSU's ESG investments are with Commonfund. In their annual impact report, Commonfund provides the following information about their ESG investing:

"Our investment strategy focuses on three key themes that we believe can generate market-rate returns and measurable environmental benefits. These themes generally guide our portfolio structuring with the goal of ensuring the Fund is diversified and producing a wide spectrum of positive environmental impacts. We work to align investments with UN Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs"). We expect that individual investments in the Fund's portfolio may align with, in many cases, multiple SDGs, as seen in the theme highlights below. We focused our assessment in this area on the SDGs that we believe are most closely associated with environmental considerations, though there are certainly instances where investments might align with other SDGs that are less expressly environmental in nature."

The three themes include renewable energy, food, agriculture, and water, and resource efficiency. A summary of those three themes from the annual impact report are provided below.

Renewable Energy

"The renewable energy theme has
received increasing attention from
regulators and investors alike due to
its potential to reduce dependence
on emissions intensive fossil fuels.
We have focused on renewables as
an opportunity to generate returns,
while being able to potentially capture
environmental benefits from those
investments. We generally view
renewables as a viable option to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
generating cost-effective, clean energy,
as well as contributing to the trend
of decarbonization in energy systems
worldwide. The renewable value chain
stretches from the components and
services used to support renewable
development to the assets themselves.
These areas of impact line up with the
goals of SDGs 7, 9, 11 and 13."

Food, Agriculture, and Water

"Food, agriculture, and water are
essential industries facing increased
pressure from population growth and
a changing climate. We view this as
an opportunity to invest in companies
and assets that seek to improve this
theme's underlying systems and infrastructure with investments potentially
creating meaningful environmental
benefit. We believe that, in addition
to being a viable option to generate
market-rate returns, these investments may produce metrics that show
environmental benefits related to the
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the improvement of water use
efficiency and more sustainable land
management. Impact in this space is
particularly well aligned with SDGs 11,
13, 14, and 15."

Resource Efficiency

"The resource efficiency theme is
driven by the critically inefficient use
of resources by industry. As supplies
of natural resources are overused
and wasted, costs of resources will
increase, and waste will negatively
impact the environment. We believe
this theme offers more flexibility to
potentially quantify and report on the
environmental benefits that may result
from such investments, as increased
efficiencies in the use of resources may
create a wider range of environmental
metrics that can be captured for reporting purposes. We anticipate these
benefits may include the reduction of
waste or greenhouse gas emissions
and potentially more efficient use of
materials. This impact lines up with the
goals of SDGs 9, 11, 12, 13, and 14."