The Green Dream: Recent Podcast Episodes
Have you listened to The Green Dream lately? It’s about how your money can help create a more sustainable future – without sacrificing investment fundamentals.
Three new episodes of The Green Dream podcast take listeners from on‑the‑ground site visits in emerging markets, through ‘shades of grey’ in ethical portfolios, to the intersection of impact investing and artificial intelligence. Below is a brief summary of the key themes of each episode.
From Brazilian Mines to Vietnamese Factories: The Site Visits Shaping Alphinity’s Ethical Investing
Guest: Jessica Cairns, Head of Responsible Investment, Alphinity Investment Management
Most fund managers analyse companies from behind a screen; Alphinity complements this with regular site visits and hundreds of company engagements each year. In this episode, Jessica explains how those on‑the‑ground experiences in places like Brazil, Vietnamese, Bangladesh and Western Australia’s Pilbara region inform Alphinity’s ‘five pillars of responsible investment’ and shape real‑world ethical decisions.
Highlights include:
- How site visits uncover risks and opportunities that financial statements alone can miss
- The role of ongoing engagement with companies, employees, and local communities in stewardship
- How Alphinity’s 2025 Responsible Investment Report and related research (including work on the apparel sector and First Nations principles) feed into portfolio construction and voting/engagement priorities
Not Simply Black or White: Exploring Shades of Grey with Luke Price
Guest: Luke Price, Ethical Investment Adviser and portfolio manager, Ethical Investment Advisers/ EIFM
Ethical investing is often presented as a simple binary – good or bad – but in practice, portfolios sit in more diverse ‘shades of grey’. Luke joins the podcast to unpack how investors can move beyond labels, assess genuine impact, and navigate greenwashing in an increasingly complex market.
Highlights include:
- How to think about companies that are improving but not yet “perfect” from an ESG or ethical perspective
- The importance of research, compliance, and portfolio management discipline when building and monitoring ethical funds
- How Luke’s role across research, compliance, and the Investment Committee helps translate ethical principles into implementable portfolio decisions
Impact Investing Meets AI: Opportunities, Risks and Ethical Decisions with Impax
Guests: Luciano Lilloy and Miriam Benarey, Impax Asset Management
AI is driving an unprecedented boom in technology, but its real‑world impact – and how to invest in it ethically – is more nuanced than the hype suggests. Luciano and Miriam from Impax discuss how a specialist impact investor approaches AI through the lens of the transition to a more sustainable economy.
For investors this episode offers a framework for thinking about AI as an impact and ethics question: who benefits, what are the externalities, and how can capital be allocated responsibly?
Highlights include:
- Where AI sits within Impax’s focus on companies profiting from solving environmental and societal challenges
- The opportunities AI creates (for example, in digital infrastructure, new energy, and industrials) alongside the risks and ethical questions it raises
- How Impax’s Sustainability Centre and “Beyond Financial Returns” work help integrate sustainability into the investment process and product design
