Celebrating Excellence in Ethical & Impact Investment

This award will go to the KiwiSaver or retail investment fund provider that can best demonstrate responsible or ethical investment outcomes. 

Entrants will demonstrate leading practice in avoiding harm from their investments, generating or supporting positive impact, providing strong corporate governance and stewardship, and operating with ethical conduct.

Please note that the award this year is combined across KiwiSaver and managed investment funds. 

The award is open to MIS licensed New Zealand retail fund providers.

This is a new award that is open to all managed funds that demonstrate leadership in integrating investment with positive outcomes from their funds. 

Entrants to this award will need to demonstrate how they generate or support positive climate, social and/or environmental outcomes through their investment. 

This category is open to MIS licensed New Zealand retail fund providers. It is not open to entrants in the Impact-focused Fund category.

The provider must have a presence in New Zealand, including core investment decision-making and staff.

This award will go to the new fund that can best demonstrate innovation in its investment approach and practice for the benefit of clients, the environment and society.

The fund can be a KiwiSaver fund, retail investment fund, private equity fund, or venture fund.  The fund must have received its first investment between March 2025 and May 2026.

The entrant’s core investment management must be based in New Zealand, (i.e. majority of the investment team).

Entrants will demonstrate a strong purpose and a clear vision for how their enterprise will create significant impact, benefitting society, the climate and/or the environment.

The investment aims can include issues such as health and community development, nature regeneration and climate solutions. 

Entrants will be able to demonstrate how they contribute to their investees, assess their impact, and contribute to broader change. 

Entrants can be a wholesale or retail fund provider, a wealth manager or social enterprise. The category includes green bond portfolios or programmes (but not a single green bond issue).

The entrant’s core investment management must be based in New Zealand, (i.e. majority of the investment team).

This award will go to the NZ-based asset owner that can best demonstrate a strong purpose and a clear vision for how their investment makes a difference. 

Entrants can be trusts and foundations, charities, social enterprises, health trusts, educational institutions, collaborations or public sector enterprises. 

Organisations in this category cannot also enter the Best Impact-focused Investor category.

This award will go to the individual financial adviser based in NZ, who can best demonstrate how ethical issues are integrated throughout their client engagement and financial advice. 

The category is open to independent financial advisers, financial advisers within advisory firms, financial advisers within wealth management companies, and other individual financial advisers.  

Please note the focus is on individual financial advisers rather than advisory firms. This is to encourage entries from a wide range of financial advisers across the sector.

Entrants will show leadership in their media coverage of ethical and impact investment and be able to cite a significant impact on public awareness and understanding of the issues.

The judges will assess the outcomes of the reporting in terms of coverage, reach, audience response and impact on the issue, as well as the quality of the reporting.  

This category is open to a broad range of New Zealand media including print, digital, radio, podcast, TV, video and documentary. This category is open to an individual journalist or a team.

This award will go to the overseas fund providing a strong ethical or impact track record, which is actively marketed in New Zealand and made available to New Zealand investors.

Entrants will demonstrate that their fund operates with high ethical standards and provides strong positive outcomes.

Overseas funds are those where the fund’s investment management activities are primarily undertaken overseas. Note, this may include overseas funds with PIE certification and where a NZ provider acts as a host ‘manager’ for distribution and compliance with NZ licensing obligations. The fund may also be made available to New Zealand investors through distributors, financial advisers, ETFs or platforms.