EB – Sustainable Investment Management's (EB-SIM) environmental, social and governance (ESG) multi asset fund, covers 31 asset classes. EB-SIM believes this variety of classes, along with regions, currencies and risk factors, as well as being much more active than most of its competitors enables it to avoid downside risks.

The EB – Sustainable Multi Asset Invest (EB-SMAI) fund aims to be a one stop shop for all an investor's needs that integrates sustainability throughout the entire process. It claims this also enables this to reduce financial risk.

At the centre of this process is combining quantitative foundations with strict qualitative controls and a cost-efficient implementation.

Asset classes go beyond large cap equities, bonds and cash by including infrastructure investments, carbon offset certificates, convertible bonds, reinsurance risks, sustainable commodities, precious metals, emerging market stocks and credits as well as derivative overlays to truly diversify the fund.

Across this large range of asset classes EB-SMAI makes tactical reallocations in a regular monthly process as well as ad-hoc upon significant changes of the capital market environment. A proprietary machine-learning model provides the basis for allocation decisions. EB-SIM argues this makes investment results more repeatable and risk-return characteristics more predictable for investors.

"EB-Sustainable Multi Asset offers the full range of capital market opportunities in one mutual fund," said Sebastian Kösters, head of multi asset portfolio management at EB-SIM and portfolio manager of EB-SMAI. "Its success is driven by a long-standing asset allocation model, EB-SIM's holistic ESG-based security selection and strong risk management processes."

Having a defensive investment mandate the avoidance of downside risks is core to the fund. Instance of this include the reduction of fixed income exposure from a 60% neutral allocation to barely more than 10% for several months in 2022, equity allocations between 5% and 30% depending on return and risk expectations and constant additions of new asset classes like carbon offset certificates or sustainable commodities.

"Good construction that also drives more resilient portfolios. There's also an interesting mix of asset classes and thoughtfulness around this," said one judge.