Towards the end of a year in which many people saw first-hand the impacts of climate change, the UN’s 27th Climate Change Conference (“COP27”) took place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, attended by more than 100 global Heads of State and governments. Then in December, COP15 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (“COP15”) finally took place in Montreal, Canada.

These conferences were key global gatherings of key decision makers to determine next steps to ensure previously agreed targets are reached. Alongside this, ambitious new objectives were set on how to ensure the planet remains liveable.

Trunk Island cottage is central to the Bermuda Zoological Society’s Living Classroom. It provides shelter and a dedicated classroom setting with AV systems to allow formal classes to take place even when the students are immersed in nature.

The classroom is completely changeable so that it can it repurposed quickly into a laboratory with microscopes or wet benches for example, to private areas for changing into gear for water activities.

Trunk Island cottage allows the island to be a standalone learning centre for BZS. Without it, students would need to come back to the mainland and the aquarium to receive formal classes and during inclement weather. As such it reduces the logistics of moving children back and forth and increases the number of opportunities they can offer significantly.

Indigenous Peoples steward more than 80% of Earth’s remaining terrestrial biodiversity, with research indicating that Indigenous-managed lands are as or more biodiverse than neighbouring nature reserves. Yet globally, less than 1% of all climate funding reaches the Indigenous Peoples and local community organisations who are the pillars of environmental stewardship.

Recognising the vital relationship between nature and culture, Synchronicity Earth’s Biocultural Diversity Programme works to remedy this problem by supporting groups which the territories and areas conserved by indigenous peoples and local communities.

In 2022, the Biocultural Diversity Programme encouraged Indigenous voices, including youth-led initiatives, in both local and global convening spaces, increased community engagement and awareness on environmental issues and pathways, and fostered new relationships with both partners and donors.

Buglife is the only organisation in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates. Founded in 2002, Buglife is the very first conservation organisation that incorporates all aspects concerning the preservation and protection of invertebrates.

Buglife’s aim is to halt the extinction of invertebrate species and to achieve sustainable populations of invertebrates and their vision is for a wildlife-rich planet where other species thrive alongside people.

To do this, Buglife are working towards the following objectives:

1. Promoting the environmental importance of invertebrates and raising awareness about the challenges to their survival.
2. Assisting in the development of legislation and policy that will ensure the conservation of invertebrates.
3. Developing and disseminating knowledge about how to conserve invertebrates.
4. Encouraging and supporting invertebrate conservation initiatives by other organisations in the UK, Europe and worldwide.
5. Undertaking practical conservation projects that will contribute to achieving their aim.

The Congo basin is home to the world’s second largest tropical forest and Africa’s second longest river. Due to its size and diversity, the region acts as a major carbon sink while providing food, water, and medicine to 40 million people. For generations, forest peoples – including an estimated 920,000 Indigenous Peoples – have safeguarded Congo basin’s biocultural diversity. However, the legacy of European colonialism, as well as industrial agriculture and mining, continue to displace and dispossess local people, leading to disastrous environmental and human impacts.

Since 2017, the Congo basin programme has supported local and grassroots organisations fighting to protect and restore the region’s biodiversity, while advocating for the rights of local and Indigenous People. The programme supports organisations in Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”), where civil society has gained influence and is increasingly engaged in national reforms. Our support is guided by the clear evidence that biodiversity protection is not possible without securing forest peoples’ rights and land tenure. The programme also focuses on community led conservation and supports efforts to revive traditional conservation practices.

Freshwater habitats cover less than one per cent of the Earth’s surface but are of critical importance for global biodiversity, human health, wellbeing and prosperity, and climate mitigation and adaptation. Despite this, wetlands are being destroyed three times faster than forests and a third of species are at risk of extinction.

Freshwater habitats host some of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. However, they are facing an urgent but largely unrecognised conservation crisis. The people and wildlife that are most impacted by their rapid loss and degradation are not receiving the attention or support they need to avoid further declines. This degradation has been exacerbated by dams which can have a devastating impact on freshwater ecosystems by impacting migratory patterns of fish, drying up of riverbeds and increased submergence of forests.

The More than Carbon initiative is designed for businesses committed to caring for the natural world and reducing their carbon footprint which Aurum has been supporting since 2014. More than Carbon focuses on protecting and regenerating critical ecosystems in some of the world’s most biodiverse – but also most threatened – regions. It places equal emphasis on nature, climate, and people, supporting work to protect biodiversity, reduce the impacts of climate change and contribute to human security, health, and well-being. This initiative works with selected partners across Synchronicity Earth’s programmes.

2022 has been a year of consolidation for the More Than Carbon initiative. Much attention was dedicated to building the case for the holistic and locally led approach of the underlying projects at a time when voluntary carbon markets continued to grow rapidly. In collaboration with an external consultant, Synchronicity Earth have developed a methodology to help their partners estimate terrestrial carbon sequestration, whilst also showing the myriad benefits for species and communities that ensure longevity, resilience, and truly nature-positive outcomes.

Aurum takes a holistic approach to carbon offsetting which focuses on building resilience and regenerating ecosystems alongside sequestering carbon, while avoiding some of the pitfalls associated with some lower quality schemes.

In 2015 the Synchronicity Earth Project regeneration programme was created in collaboration with Aurum and continues to be supported by Aurum Kaleidoscope. Over time this project has evolved into the More Than Carbon programme which Synchronicity Earth use to support a range of projects which provide carbon balancing.

It places equal emphasis on nature, climate, and people, supporting work to protect biodiversity, reduce the impacts of climate change and contribute to human security, health, and wellbeing.

Aurum Kaleidoscope directly support Hutan, which is a locally based conservation organisation in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Hutan’s reforestation team, made up almost entirely of women, is working to restore a key wildlife corridor to support important local species such as Bornean orangutans and pygmy elephants.

In April 2022, COVID-19 restrictions were finally lifted in Malaysian Borneo, allowing the Hutan team to get back to its usual routine of field activities.

The Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance is a multi-sector collaboration designed to drive investment into coastal natural capital by pioneering ground-breaking finance products that incentivise blended finance and private investment. It was created to help secure a regenerated ocean for a resilient future. This is primarily through connecting the finance and insurance sectors, governments, environmental organisations, academics and communities adapting to climate change.

ORRAA’s pragmatic approach is based on climate risk and ocean risk, together equaling financial risk.

These risks threaten sustainable economic growth, entrench communities in poverty, and present the global community with ever-mounting costs. Research led by ORRAA member WWF shows that a business-as-usual trajectory entails great risk to our economies, with a cost potentially reaching up to US$8.4 trillion over the next 15 years.

However, ORRAA believes by adopting nature-based solutions these impacts can be mitigated. Marine and coastal ecosystems like coral reefs, mangroves or salt marshes offer efficient and cost-effective ways to mitigate climate risk while bringing a host of social, economic and ecological benefits.

Aurum Kaleidoscope supports the IUCN. Created in 1948, IUCN has evolved into the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network. The IUCN harnesses the experience, resources and reach of its 1,400+ Member organisations and the input of some 15,000 experts. IUCN is the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it. IUCN provides public, private and non-governmental organisations with the knowledge and tools that enable human progress, economic development and nature conservation to take place together.

Donations which help to cover the core costs of the IUCN are crucial for delivery of a range of activities, including maintenance of the Red List of Threatened Species, innovation, programme development & delivery, and championing nature’s role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Aurum’s donation to core funding allows the organisation to remain strategic and deliver its mission to ‘Influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable.’

In 2022, the IUCN attended the two major conferences of the year, the 27th UN Climate Change Conference (“COP27”) and the 15th meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (“COP15”). Both conferences were vital in influencing change in both climate change and biodiversity.

The 27th UN Climate Change Conference took place from 6 November to 20 November 2022, in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. COP27 was seen as bridging the gap in Climate Change where several initiatives were introduced.

The impact of the IUCN took a further step at COP15, taking an active role by engaging with major groups and stakeholders. A roadmap out of the ecological crisis towards a more nature positive was agreed and set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

One to One Children’s Fund aims to rebuild and transform the lives of vulnerable children. One to One identifies the greatest risks children and adolescents face and then works with partners to deliver cost-effective interventions in healthcare, psychosocial services and education.

Around the world, children are living with trauma and disease. The impact on their life chances can be devastating. One to One trains and empowers people who can best fill the critical gaps in care for those children by providing relatable role models to make healthcare more inclusive.

In 2022, Aurum Kaleidoscope continued to support AFFT via The Seneca Trust which receives donations from Aurum’s Embedded Impact initiative. The Seneca Trust is a charity focused on disability, health, displacement, and education.

AFFT believes in supporting families caring for orphaned and vulnerable children. Early Childhood Development is the most important time in a person’s life and good nutrition and a nurturing environment are critical. By removing food insecurity, children are able to learn more easily and a significant improvement in academic, sporting and social performance can be seen.

A third of AFFT’s staff are former beneficiaries.

The Baby Ubuntu programme aims to help improve the lives of children with developmental disabilities in low and middle income countries such as Uganda.

Adara implements the Baby Ubuntu programme in partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. This programme is an early-intervention, community-based programme that supports children with a disability and their caregivers. The programme ensures caregivers understand their child’s disability and provides them with practical skills to help feed, communicate and play with the child.

Acumen is a global non-profit organisation that invests in sustainable businesses leaders and ideas. This is done by supporting grass roots projects to reduce poverty and create opportunities for marginalised communities across healthcare, energy, agriculture, financial inclusion and education.

As a global non-profit, Acumen takes a different approach to investing. Rather than investing traditional capital, Acumen invests in philanthropic, or “patient,” capital that provides start-ups the flexibility and security to grow their business.

By making seed and early-stage investments, this enables social enterprises to validate assumptions, bring products and services to market, and begin to scale. To help their invested companies grow and scale, Acumen also provides guidance in the areas of strategy, governance, customer insights and fundraising.

A key part of Acumen’s offering is their Academy – where they provide courses to young social entrepreneurs across the globe to become social leaders and go on to operate their own NGO’s or other initiatives to tackle challenges within their local communities.

This is about supporting change at a fundamental level by ‘growing’ social entrepreneurs and facilitating their development.

Founded in 1954, Vision Bermuda originally operated from Beacon House as both a sheltered workshop and social club for people who were blind or vision impaired and was officially established by the Bermuda Society for the Blind Act in 1957. In 2013, the registered charity began promoting vision health through education, and offering specialised professional vision rehabilitation services to assist in promoting independence. The name was subsequently changed to Vision Bermuda to better recognise those served.

No major renovation had taken place at Beacon House, Vision Bermuda’s home, since the early 1960s and the building deteriorated over the years. Electrical, mechanical and plumbing systems were out-dated, and an extensive renovation of Beacon House was required.

It was no longer possible to provide the full range of in-house services required due to safety, modern building code requirements and practical considerations.

As part of Aurum’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, we have awarded two university bursaries to promising ARK Academy students who have chosen to follow one of two career streams; one in finance and one in environmental conservation.

The Aurum bursaries combine financial support, to cover both tuition fees and living expenses, with practical support in the form of a comprehensive internship programme and ongoing mentoring. This combined approach will remove the financial burden of higher education and provide excellent opportunities for the students in two competitive fields. From this ongoing relationship, we are building an enduring association with these students.

The internships provide an insight to both the Aurum Group and our allied charity Synchronicity Earth. As part of the internship programme, the students collaborated on projects at both Aurum’s London office and Synchronicity Earth. This has expanded their experience by providing insight into another industry. By collaborating with Synchronicity Earth, we will continue our work to enhance the links between finance and conservation.

The SLAS started in 2014 as a Community Based Organisation and became a national NGO in 2017, with the aim of facilitating access to health, education, psychological and social interventions and strategies for people with disabilities, with a specific focus on those with Autism Spectrum Condition.

Today SLAS provides much needed services in various parts of the country, and many families who receive its services claim it is a ‘life-saving’ and one-of-a-kind organisation in Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone remains one of the poorest countries in the world and in 2016 had the lowest life expectancy globally. Almost one in five children don’t reach their fifth birthday. Those with rare and complex conditions face little prospect of getting support and treatment. Within this resource-poor context, those with disabilities, particularly those with neurological conditions and intellectual disabilities, often face devastating social exclusion, with profound educational and livelihood consequences, contributing significantly to ill-health and poverty.

Freedom ID is a not-for-profit identity verification platform designed to help safeguard refugees fleeing war, originally created to help refugees fleeing war in Ukraine. Now, leading FinTech companies are joining forces with Freedom ID, and using their technology for good to help ensure the safe passage and stable settlement of refugees around the world.

There are millions of people globally fleeing conflict. For example, since the conflict in Ukraine started an estimate 5 million people have been displaced.

Globally, human trafficking mostly targets women and children and there are estimated to be 4.8 million people trapped in sex slavery; of those one million are children.

When people are forced to flee, they leave behind more than just their homes. Being away from their familiar surroundings, they often lose their community support networks and can end up being socially and culturally isolated. This alongside other factors can make displaced people and refugees easy targets for human traffickers who use their precarious position to exploit them. A common ruse is for traffickers to pose as volunteers and hosts to establish trust.

This number is growing and is being fuelled by psychological or emotional vulnerability, economic hardship, lack of a social safety nets, natural disasters, political instability etc. According to the UN, this reality is worse for women who represent 51% of those trafficked and children making up a staggering 28%.

The Uyghurs are a predominately Muslim community numbering close to 2 million in the Northwest of China. Human rights groups believe that since 2017, more than a million Uyghurs have been detained in ‘re-education camps’ with numerous reports and claims of compulsory sterilisation, physical and sexual abuse, repression of religion and the destruction of religious buildings.

11,000 Uyghur people have fled China to Turkey to escape persecution, where they are living in overcrowded housing, without the right to work, income, food, healthcare or support. This extremely vulnerable community in exile has one of the most desperate plights in the word today.

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has caused tens of thousands of deaths on both sides and instigated Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II.

By February 2023 more than 8 million Ukrainians had left their country roughly 19% of the total population and 5.9 million are displaced internally within Ukraine.

However, the situation is even more challenging for those with intellectual disabilities:

• For most people with intellectual disabilities and families it’s not possible to leave the warzone.
• For many, it is not even possible to hide in shelters because they are not accessible.
• There is severe lack of basic supplies including medicines, hygiene products, and other necessary items.

On this basis, Aurum Kaleidoscope have provided targeted support to the following programmes.

FDA is a lay-community non-profit and independent association based in Lebanon which was formed by a group of concerned parents whose children have different disabilities.

The FDA offers advocacy and rehabilitation services to children with intellectual disabilities in its I’Dad Centre.

Over the last few years, Lebanon has been facing a number of major crises, which has led to the compounding of socio-economic difficulties of the most vulnerable residents. In particular, this has exacerbated the challenges of people with disabilities due to the weakness of the social protection system.

The FDA’s I’dad center offers a range of facilities for students with intellectual disabilities which include:

• Speech therapy and sensory rooms
• Large gymnasium for activities such as basketball, volley ball and tennis
• Hydrotherapy facilities
• Carpentry, mosaic and clay workshop facilities
• Kitchen and large dining hall

Hope and Homes for Children is a charity with a vision of a world in which children no longer suffer institutional care, working towards a day when every child can grow up in a loving family.

While orphanages and other institutions may have been set up with good intentions, the evidence shows that the damage caused to children living in institutions is both physical and mental and, in most cases, irreparable. This provides an urgency to ensuring children are placed within families or alternative family-type arrangements.

There are approximately 1.5 million people with a learning disability in the UK, with around 863,000 of those being adults of working age. Families in the UK with a disabled child face challenges and inequality across all areas of life. As these young people become adults these challenges continue, unemployment has historically been extremely high for people with a learning disability and is currently around 94%.

Two in five disabled children in the UK live in poverty and the annual cost of bringing up a disabled child is significantly more than a for a non-disabled child. This financial pressure combined with the day-to-day practicalities of raising a disabled child, can lead to an enormous daily strain on family life.

High unemployment figures amongst people with learning disabilities can be attributed to a lack of aspiration for people to be able to do training and work which is enforced by the very few training options available to them. This lack of aspiration is also reinforced from a number of sources ranging from parents, to teachers and employers which has led to options, such as apprenticeships not being discussed or offered to people with a learning disability.

On 11 April 2022, Aurum Kaleidoscope Foundation was formed as a charitable incorporated organisation. Aurum Kaleidoscope is registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales and conducts a grant making process intended to promote the advancement of environmental conservation, social welfare, and education.

Aurum also offers two specific Embedded Impact Funds where donations are made by Aurum from investment management fees:

Aurum is an Embedded Impact® business that aims to provide profit with purpose.

Aurum’s purpose is to grow and protect its clients capital alongside environmental capital; the planet and species and social capital; healthcare and education.

More information on Aurum’s Innovative Financing approach can be found on page 37 of the report.

Over many years, Aurum has selected beneficiaries using a rigorous due diligence process and has donated to them directly. This has meant Aurum has become a long-term supporter of a wide range of organisations. The growth of the Embedded Impact approach itself led to a realisation that, in order to keep the highest fiduciary duty and to further maximise positive environmental and social impact, the due diligence of beneficiaries should be performed by an entity with an independent member that is structurally designed to exist for the public benefit.

Aurum Kaleidoscope is not a company; it is formed as a corporate body directly regulated by the charities commission. This means Aurum Kaleidoscope is solely subject to the legal framework that applies to charities and so refines the focus of the trustees to the pursuit of the charity’s
charitable purpose.

With the power to do anything which furthers its charitable purpose, Aurum Kaleidoscope is thus freed of the conflict that many companies face under the doctrine of shareholder primacy. This functional segregation provides the perfect balance for Aurum to carry out its Embedded Impact Approach.

Aurum Kaleidoscope has minimised operational expenses due to the resource support provided by the Aurum Group. Aurum Kaleidoscope does not employ any staff and does not require office space so can instead concentrate on identifying and verifying the beneficiaries of its grant making process.

Aurum Kaleidoscope’s Trustees are predominantly made up of Aurum Group colleagues but there is also an independent member who provides additional insight and oversight.

Aurum’s ESG approach has been to pioneer innovative financing models. These provide unrestricted and stable funding to our allied charities alongside the ability to plan multi-year projects.

In addition to being a fully Embedded Impact business, Aurum also offers two specific Embedded Impact Funds where Aurum uses part of the profits it makes from these funds to finance donations to environmental and social causes:

• Aurum’s first Embedded Impact investment fund, launched in 2002. Aurum makes donations funded from part of the profits it realises to environmental charitable causes including Synchronicity Earth, a registered charity that supports the conservation of biodiversity, ecosystems and species at risk around the world.
• Aurum launched a second Embedded Impact fund in 2019. Aurum makes donations funded from part of the profits it realises to social causes including The Seneca Trust a charity focused on disability, health, displacement and education and environmental causes including Synchronicity Earth. This is achieved through providing grants and direct assistance to charities and organisations.

Since inception, Aurum’s Embedded Impact approach has given more than $22 million to support charitable endeavours around the world.

The Alternative ESG Symposium was held on 19 May 2022. The speakers were made up of specialists in their respective fields and specialised consultants which ensured there was both depth and breadth of knowledge. It was designed to evolve the ESG conversation in the hedge fund industry. Providing insights for those attendees beginning their ESG journeys and those who are established professionals.

The agenda was curated to cut through the incessant news flow and provide information that attendees needed to know and where interest could be sparked.

When selecting panellists, the need for diversity of many dimensions, experience, age, and wider opinions was of paramount importance and this reflected well in the insightful discussions through the day.

The hedge fund industry deals with complexity and risk every day. Fundamental to the industry’s success are analysis of data and the need to understand the impact of trends and systemic change. By extending this approach to environmental impact, the industry is ideally placed to both understand the problems and be part of the solution.

Aurum has a goal to galvanise the hedge fund industry to have a net positive environmental impact.

To achieve this goal, Aurum engages and collaborates with external stakeholders including underlying managers. This primarily involves candid discussion and providing educational materials and guidance on how environmental philanthropy can benefit both their businesses and wider society.

The targeted focus of the Aurum’s Group’s hedge fund industry engagement is complemented by engaging with different stakeholders from across society.

These actions help to bring together a wide range of participants to share best practice and drive change.

Aurum’s research subsidiary Aurum Research Limited’s (“ARL”) Head of ESG engages with our underlying managers on ESG topics to drive evolution within the industry. The focus is on both the corporate and investment approach of the managers and how this is evolving through time.

ESG issues are incorporated into the investment decision-making process when Aurum considers
prospective investments and when monitoring portfolio positions.

ARL’s Head of ESG provides an independent review of Aurum’s underlying managers. A key part of this is building trusted relationships to collaborate and engages and seek to positively influence and evolve ESG approaches. This differs from strategy to strategy and approaches are tailored accordingly.

The Wildscreen Festival is a biennial event which celebrates and advances the art of natural world storytelling through film. The 40th Wildscreen film festival was held in Bristol and in a hybrid form between 10 and 14 October 2022.

Wildscreen has a worldwide reach and uses this to spotlight the crucial role that visual media plays in communicating complex but critical science. The week of events culminates in the Panda Awards, the wildlife television and film world’s Oscar equivalent.

The Wildscreen Festival supports a global community of over 6,000 professional storytellers and conservation organisations, which influences an online audience of over 3 million and directly reaching public audiences of 100k every year. This increases people’s experience of the natural world, ensuring people feel part of it and help to protect it.

Aurum Kaleidoscope sponsored the Emerging Talent bursary and the Panda award for Sustainability.

Aurum became a signatory to the PRI in 2014. The PRI works to understand the investment implications of ESG factors and to support signatories in incorporating these factors into their investment ownership decisions. The PRI acts in the long-term interests of its signatories, the financial markets, and economies in which they operate and ultimately of the environment and society as a whole.

In 2021, the PRI scoring moved to a new numerical grading system ranging from 1 to 5 stars. As part of the recalibration, questions are now weighted by their relative importance to responsible investment practices and/or the PRI’s overall mission, with a multiplier applied to questions that are deemed to be of moderate or high importance.

This adjustment ensures that the highest scores are awarded to those signatories with more mature ESG programs that demonstrate leading practices within the responsible investment industry.

While controversial, the biggest cyber-security threat to an organisation is via its people. Humans are the easiest route for a malicious programme to bypass a company’s network. This can be either through giving their details to the ‘bad actor’ or by running an application that should not be run. A smaller risk is that of poor system configuration that allows a ‘bad actor’ to use a backdoor. The Aurum Group has multiple systems to reduce the risk of human error or system misconfiguration.

Comparing the last six months of 2022 to the same six months of 2021, allowing for the increase in total inbound email, malware & phishing emails blocked by the Aurum Group’s external mail scanning provider have increased by 4.8%. The overall level of cyber-attacks remains at a high level and to reduce the risk to Aurum, the Aurum Group runs a multi-supplier security model utilising independent breach databases. The majority of cyber-attacks come in the form of phishing emails as these allow the ‘bad actor’ into the system via social engineering.

Aurum encourages group employees to support charities that are important to them and to use their skills and efforts to make a difference.

Aurum runs a programme that supports group employee fundraising by up to £1,000 annually per employee. Employees are also able to nominate a £50 birthday donation to a charity of their choice.

In 2018 Aurum introduced an employee volunteering programme, where staff are allocated two days per year to volunteer. This was enhanced in 2021 from providing London based volunteering opportunities, to the following three options:

1. Access to the online volunteering platform Matchable.
2. For colleagues who already have volunteering commitments, to be able to use these days for charity of their choice.
3. To provide group volunteering opportunities to facilitate team building.

Reflecting the Aurum Group’s focus on climate change and support for the Paris Agreement’s aim of keeping the increase in global average temperatures to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, Aurum is a supporter of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (“TCFD”).

Aurum have always been cognisant of the environmental challenges of climate change and both the risks and opportunities this has for us as a business. This TCFD reporting is an important step to strengthening our reporting and transparency in this important area.

Aurum believes a robust ESG approach is both our moral and fiduciary duty. ARL’s Head of ESG is responsible for identifying climate risks and opportunities in collaboration with ARL’s investment and operational due diligence teams. This information is provided to Aurum from both a company and investment perspective.

As well as having this formal process in place, Aurum also believes ESG is the collective responsibility of all group employees. This is reflected in ESG considerations being integrated into all group employee objectives. These objectives range from limiting personal and professional environmental impact, ensuring inclusivity in all we do and looking to drive industry and wider societal change by collaborating with other industry participants.

At a business level, the Aurum Group have taken opportunities to reduce our carbon footprint and are particularly cognisant of our suppliers and their impact on society. Further details on this can be found in the “Business Operations” section on page 50 of the report.

At Aurum we believe it is important to consider how our day-to-day
operations can have an impact on environmental and social issues.

The Aurum Group continually review operations, seeking ways to improve efficiency and decrease negative impact.