Capital Series: Grant Mulligan, AlTi
This episode is part of our new Capital Series hosted by MCJ partner, Jason Jacobs. This series will explore a diverse range of capital sources and the individuals who drive them. From family offices and institutional LPs to private equity, government funding, and more, we'll take a deep dive into the world of capital and its critical role in driving innovation and progress.
Today’s guest is Grant Mulligan, a Vice President at Alvarium Tiedemann (AlTi).
AlTi is a global wealth and asset manager that's in the business of turning powerful ideas into high-performing strategies and solutions. Whether they are individuals or institutions, foundations, or family-led businesses, AlTi offers its clients a connected ecosystem of advice, solutions, and investment opportunities from across their global network.
As an institutional investor, AlTi is serious about impact. And Grant focuses specifically on the firm’s net-zero strategies and nature-based solutions. This conversation takes a fascinating dive into their approach, their origin story, how they measure impact, and how they allocate capital across many different asset classes. We also discuss the types of clients who prioritize impact investing and how this landscape is evolving over the past few years and into the future. Tune in to learn more about AlTi's mission to create enduring value.
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Episode recorded on March 8, 2023.
In this episode, we cover:
[3:00] An overview of Alvarium Tiedemann (AlTi) and where Grant sits in the firm
[7:12] The role of impact in AlTi's clients' decision making
[12:23] Grant's theory of change and work in wildlife biology
[17:56] What inspired him to transition upstream and join AlTi's mission
[20:45] A deep dive into the forthcoming wealth transfer
[25:21] How AlTi structures capital allocation
[29:39] AlTi's theory of change for overall climate sustainability, decarbonization tech, and nature-based solutions
[33:45] The role of changing perspectives on impact and asset allocation as a result of recent market fluctuations
[39:26] AlTi’s impact assessment process
[44:45] How Grant balances servicing existing client demand vs generating new demand
[53:34] The role of client recommendations in deploying capital
[57:12] Grant's thoughts on what's missing in impact investments
[1:00:37] Where philanthropic capital fits in
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Jason Jacobs (00:00:00):
Today on My Climate Journey Capital Series, our guest is Grant Mulligan, a vice president on the investment team focused on climate sustainability at Alvarium Tiedemann, also known as AlTi. AlTi is a global wealth and asset manager that's in the business of turning powerful ideas into high performing strategies and solutions. Whether their clients are individuals or institutions, foundations, or family led businesses, they offer a connected ecosystem of advice, solutions, and innovative investment opportunities from across their global network.
(00:00:36):
I was excited for this one because AlTi is an institutional investor that is serious about impact, and it's fascinating to dive into their approach, their origin story, how they think about impact, how they measure impact, how they staff the team to allocate impact capital across many different asset classes, and also what types of clients care about impact, and how that landscape is shifting over the last few years and into the future. Before we start.
Cody Simms (00:01:10):
I'm Cody Simms.
Yin Lu (00:01:11):
I'm Yin Lu.
Jason Jacobs (00:01:13):
And I'm Jason Jacobs. And welcome to My Climate Journey.
Yin Lu (00:01:19):
This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Cody Simms (00:01:24):
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and all the ways people like you and I can help.
Jason Jacobs (00:01:37):
Okay. Grant Mulligan and welcome to the show.
Grant Mulligan (00:01:40):
Hey, thanks Jason. Thrilled to be here.
Jason Jacobs (00:01:42):
Thrilled to have you. And it's funny, and I know we were just talking before we recorded, but this is a new series focused on the climate capital stack, and we've had plenty of GPs on the show. We've had an LP or two over the years, but we wanted to have a dedicated series to shine a light on all the different, both types of capital that are available, but also just the different approaches from the different firms and the journeys of people to get there and what motivates the people that are actually doing the work behind the firms. And so you and Alvarium Tiedemann, did I get that right, the combined entity?
Grant Mulligan (00:02:22):
Alvarium Tiedemann. That's right. Yep.
Jason Jacobs (00:02:24):
Yeah, were a brave Guinea pig who said yes very early in this series. And we're grateful that you're making the time to come on and share more about what you're up to.
Grant Mulligan (00:02:34):
Yeah, well we're really excited. We really believe in the ability for our clients to invest in climate sustainability for impact and financial returns. And I think the goal here, if we're going to get to a net zero world, is you need more capital coming into the space, doing good things and more builders in the space. And we're very proud of supporting that and looking forward to sharing our story and hopefully encouraging others to do the same and finding partners along the way.
Jason Jacobs (00:03:00):
Great. So maybe for starters, talk a bit about the overall firm, and then it'd be great just to give a little context on where you sit within the firm and where climate sits within the firm as well.
Grant Mulligan (00:03:12):
Yeah, absolutely. So Alvarium Tiedemann, or AlTi for short, is a global investment advisor. What others might know us as a multi-family office. And our clients are individuals or institutions, foundations or family led businesses that come to us for advice, solutions, and innovative investment opportunities from a global network. And so fundamentally what that means to me is that we help our clients invest their money to meet their goals. And those goals are very wide ranging.
(00:03:42):
So we have offices in 11 countries and serve a global clientele. We have an asset management business that offers kind of proprietary real estate investment platforms and other kind of alternative platforms and investment opportunities, and then provides a merchant banking as well. But I'm on the wealth management side of the business. And in that business we manage the majority of our clients' wealth across both private and public markets, impact and non-impact. These are high net worth individuals and organizations. Many of them, our clients are foundations that are philanthropic in nature. We have estate and trust services, family governance services, and then I really focus on our impact strategies.
(00:04:24):
So I'm a vice president with the firm, focused on one of our two impact strategies, climate sustainability, and then the other being inclusive innovation, which you can think of as our social impact offering. And those are talked about as two separate things, but they really are more of a spectrum that include gender and racial equity lenses when we invest, access and affordability, equitable capital flows. And what I think makes AlTi special is our ability to have a broad offering of a large firm with the focused attention of a boutique.
(00:05:00):
And so that kind of means that we have access to, through our size, some of the best investments in the market, while also a focused impact team and others that can really help build kind of bespoke portfolios for clients with specific interests. And so I focus primarily on climate sustainability. And there we have two verticals, decarbonization technology and nature-based solutions. And we're looking for investments that kind of fit our theory of change along those two verticals to make investments across many different types of asset classes.
Jason Jacobs (00:05:30):
And so relative to a typical wealth management firm that talks about portfolio construction, and returns and risk, and removing friction, and trust and estate, and a lot of the things that you just said, I mean, do you fit that profile or would you consider yourselves an impact firm?
Grant Mulligan (00:05:53):
I think we definitely consider ourselves an impact firm, but not exclusively impact investing. And so our thinking about that is there is no investment that doesn't have some sort of impact on the world. And for many of our clients, that can be impact on family relationships, wealth transfer over generations, the local community that you live in.
(00:06:14):
So our impact strategy, we're roughly $60 billion of assets under management for the overall firm. Assets that are dedicated to specifically and kind of exclusively impact investments are somewhere in the $5 billion range. So it's a portion of what we do, but not exclusive. And I think that part of what we really talk about with our clients is ways to have impact with wealth in a number of different kind of meanings and opportunities, and climate sustainability being one of those.
Jason Jacobs (00:06:46):
And when it comes to families, foundations, and other types of clients that you work with, do you find that they care about impact more than a typical high net worth or ultra high net worth client? And is that a screening criteria? Or is it just for ones that happen to care, you have an offering for them, and you have this huge portfolio so there's something for everyone?
Grant Mulligan (00:07:12):
I think that there's a little bit of there's something for everyone would be the starting place. We certainly don't screen clients and say to be one of our clients you have to care about impact investing. And I think that this is where, in the conversation around climate sustainability, there's either impact or there's financial returns, in ways that I think may be unhelpful to the conversation writ large. In that there's opportunities that we have clients who are invested in what we call impact strategies that are not doing it for the impact, but they're doing it because of the portfolio diversification benefits that you mentioned or the financial returns component. And they love the idea that impact is a part of that, and maybe have some predilection in going that direction because of impact.
(00:07:49):
And then we have other clients who really care about having bespoke strategies that are built around their specific interests like regenerative agriculture. And they want to know everything in our pipeline related to regenerative ag. They have very specific impact goals and targets. And so historically we've had clients, we've been at this kind of for decades, who were early adopters in the divestment community. We have many who now are taking actively measuring their carbon footprint in their portfolio, and several that have made net zero climate commitments. And so those are our most engaged kind of clientele around that.
(00:08:25):
But really I think about clients at different stages of the journey on impact, some who are brand new and we're doing a lot of education at the very beginning about what's the difference between concessionary impact and non-concessionary impact. What are the opportunities, how much of their portfolio would they like to dedicate to this? And then others who are very, very, very far along their journey, and we're having much more sophisticated conversations about their 10 year plan to get to net zero.
Jason Jacobs (00:08:53):
I know when I sit down with my financial advisor, they might say, "Hey, given your risk profile and your age and what you do professionally and stuff like that, here's the mix that we recommend that you have in equities, and here's the mix that we recommend that you have in fixed income or bonds." Are you providing similar consultation as it relates to climate as a percentage of holdings? And if so, how does that work given that climate touches everything? It touches early stage venture capital, it touches growth stage venture capital, it touches project finance, it touches private companies, public companies, land acquisition, divestment, shareholder activism. How do you think about that on a per family basis?
Grant Mulligan (00:09:41):
That's a great question. So I think it starts broad, it gets more narrow. So the first thing is what is the client's goals? Is it wealth preservation? Is it growth of assets, kind of aggressive? Is it more conservative approach like I mentioned for wealth preservation? Is it impact first? We have clients who are happy to give away the vast portions of their portfolios if they can make an impact. And so it really starts with what are your goals?
(00:10:10):
And so you mentioned talking to your financial advisor, and it sounds like, well here's kind of the traditional 60-40 split what we recommend. We have target portfolios for clients who maybe want to be a little more aggressive, maybe a little more moderate, maybe want to be more conservative. We have target portfolios they can come into, and we can get into different conversations with different groups of each of you have 80% in kind of public markets, liquid, do you want 20% in private markets that are less liquid? What are the benefits and downsides of different strategies? So you talk about all of that.
(00:10:46):
But when it gets into the impact piece and climate, there are certainly clients that we have that are part of the firm that are invested in climate and don't know it, so to speak. They wouldn't identify it as a climate investment, even though it fits our theory of change around climate. So it might be they really care about the investing in the energy sector because they think that's a major growth sector, and they are financing new development of renewable energy. They're just doing that because they think it's a good business, and impact never really comes up.
(00:11:16):
For other clients, and specifically the ones that I work with, it really starts with what are their goals and trying to understand what they care about? Are they investing for impact today? Someone might give to, the example I use often, is a food bank. You're worried about hunger today. Are they thinking about their children, their great-grandchildren? Where are they in this journey? What are they managing for? What potential impact on society do they want to have with their wealth? So it really comes from understanding where they're at.
(00:11:45):
And as I mentioned, they're kind of on a spectrum of goals and interests, and that's where we can get deeper in. We actually have an impact survey that clients fill out, that advisors walk them through, that really helps tease out what they care about, ask questions. And then it's really on the individual advisor to help clients put together their particular portfolio. But in my role, I really try to do a lot of education, right? Theory of change documents, blog posts, things of that nature, to help clients understand what types of potential investments are out there in climate, and where they can more proactively maybe allocate capital to make a difference in climate.
Jason Jacobs (00:12:23):
You've mentioned the theory of change that the firm has around climate a few times. I want to ask you about that, but before I do, I want to ask you about the Grant Mulligan theory of change because you don't come from a wealth management background. You were at The Nature Conservancy, and yet here you are at a traditional wealth manager that has an impact sleeve. So how did you end up there and why?
Grant Mulligan (00:12:45):
Yeah. Yeah, thanks for asking. It's a great question. I get it a lot. It is a slightly different journey than many of my colleagues have taken to get to the wealth management. I actually started my career as a wildlife biologist. I read Sand County Almanac as a kid growing up, spending my summers in Wisconsin, saw it as required reading for a class in undergrad, and signed up for that class simply because that book was required after seeing it in the bookstore and having loved it. And realized that there was an opportunity to go work in the field, be in nature, and make a living at that.
(00:13:18):
And so started my career there, breeding endangered species for release back to the wild. But relatively quickly realized that working that far downstream on actually trying to protect the last animals in the field wasn't going to be enough for me. What were the upstream problems that were causing them to go extinct in the first place, and how do we work on those problems instead of trying to collect the last few from the field, keep them alive in sufficient numbers to keep them from going extinct.
(00:13:46):
And so from there I went to the Yale School of the Environment where I focused on the intersection of business and the environment, and specifically, environmental economics. Really trying to just understand what systems are kind influencing our relationship to the environment, what's happening, what are the different levers that we could pull, sustainability. At the time, corporate sustainability was a big part of that push, but I really kind of wanted to go deeper in my master's in understanding what was driving some of these unfortunate consequences for an environment that I cared a lot about and felt like I wasn't doing enough just in the field, as great a job as that was. But I wanted to kind of see if I could move upstream.
(00:14:27):
And so from there, I was fortunate enough after I graduated, joined The Nature Conservancy where I had a variety of roles. And what really the transition point for me was I joined a founding team within The Nature Conservancy that ultimately became part of NatureVest, the impact investing arm of The Nature Conservancy that was working on partnerships with institutional scale investment managers, folks who managed real assets, farms and forests throughout the world. And the goal was basically to provide impact advisory services that could help these real asset operators manage these properties in ways that they could deliver conservation alongside market rate returns. And ideally that conservation and thinking about sustainability, and carbon markets, or nature, water use, that all of those things might even be accretive to market rate returns. It could be a kind of competitive advantage, trying to move capital into the space that was aligned with the conservation goals that The Nature Conservancy had.
(00:15:29):
So that was, we started with $0 of raised, and tried to support our partners out through the different fundraises. And ended up having a number of different funds that we were supporting. But all along I felt like I was speaking a second language when talking about finance and economics. Even though I was working with these private equity partners, I was fluent in the science and conservation side, they were fluent in the finance and economic side. And I felt like, despite the fact that philanthropy and government grants and these kind of innovative partnerships had a big role to play, I still felt like the fundamental barrier was we weren't getting enough capital into conservation, into nature, into climate. We needed to go faster, we needed other ways of doing this, we needed it to look different than it had before.
(00:16:18):
And I needed to better understand how those capital allocation decisions are actually made. I knew it was a problem, but I didn't understand really who was making those decisions, how and why? What were the criteria they were using, what motivates capital flow in and out of the sector? And so to kind of test out this hypothesis that capital could flow into this if the story was presented in the right way, I was looking for opportunities where I could get in on the inside. I could go into the capital allocator space, and really get my hands dirty and understand what are the opportunities, what are the barriers, how is the story being told today? And that's what really motivated the change for me. This kind of need to immerse myself in that part and become fluent.
(00:17:03):
And so that's really what motivated me to come over to AlTi, which had been a leader for a long time in allocating capital to impact very motivated clients in this space, but still felt like we weren't tapping the full potential, and that there was a real growth opportunity here because of some changes that we can talk about both in climate, and also a major wealth transfer going on, the largest in history. And so between these different kind of categories, I felt like there was a real opportunity to come learn and figure out how do we really unlock capital for this space? Because I felt there were things out there that were ready, we just weren't getting the money to them.
Jason Jacobs (00:17:39):
And just to flip that around, so what was AlTi's pitch to you in terms of here's what we need, here's the role, here's why it matters, and here's why this is where you should park relative to any place else that you could go to achieve the objectives that you just stated?
Grant Mulligan (00:17:54):
Yeah, I think what really appealed to me about AlTi, it was Tiedemann at the time, so we just finished the merger with Alvarium and Tiedemann. One was their track record. I really got the sense that they weren't checking the box. This wasn't just impact to say that they did impact and try and have something flashy on their website that could attract some capital, but they had a really, really thoughtful approach and team that I really appreciated. And they had been on this journey for so long, I felt like I wouldn't have to come in from the very beginning and convince them this was even worth looking at, but that I could help them reach the next level, if you will.
(00:18:31):
And so additionally, AlTi has been investing for quite some time in the energy transition, really getting more renewables onto the grid, but they hadn't done as much in nature-based solutions. And so I felt like there was something additive that I could bring, as having worked in that space, worked at The Nature Conservancy, who I have deep respect for, and think that the teams there are doing absolutely incredible innovative work in the space and felt like I had seen some of that and might be able to bring it over to what Tiedemann and AlTi were doing.
(00:19:02):
And then the other one is I think I saw in the way that they pitched it, a dedicated base of clients, quite large, that were all in on impact and would give us a really strong toehold and foothold to go start doing things right away and allocating capital and continuing with those clients on the journey. But I also saw a real eagerness that if we could get the right educational materials out the door, if we could really define a tight strategy, if we could define for advisors what impact meant, and how they could tell that story with their clients, that we could bring a lot more capital into this.
(00:19:38):
And again, I'll reference, and we can get into the major wealth transfer that's coming, the next generation clients, as this wealth transfer is going on, care so much about impact. And it just felt like we were on the cusp of a major change in terms of how impact can be allocated. And we could really be at the forefront for growing the business, AlTi, in impact, and being a landing spot for a great strategy for business development and bringing more people in. But also really break down some of the barriers that clients were having getting into impact already and really get more capital allocated space. So it just seemed like an amazing opportunity to really test out some of my hypotheses with a group of dedicated people who believed in the same mission.
Jason Jacobs (00:20:25):
So it'd be great to just double click on each of those. And I guess there's three on my list so far. One is you mentioned the big changes in climate, so what are those? One is the wealth transfer, and we touched on it briefly. I don't know if you have anything to add there. And then the last is just better unpacking the AlTi theory of change for climate.
Grant Mulligan (00:20:45):
Yeah, great. I'm going to start with the wealth transfer because I think that I mentioned it a couple times, and I think it's a really important piece of what I see going on that informs the opportunity in climate. And so hopefully a good transition there. I think $70 trillion in wealth is about to be transferred. As the boomer generation is transitioning, wealth is being handed off, entrepreneurs are exiting their businesses. There is a shifting need in what the next generation wants in terms of managing their wealth. And a huge part of that is that they want a positive impact as the central core of everything they do. And that's something that AlTi really believes in.
(00:21:28):
And so the next generation just kind of sees investing differently. They want to invest with their values, they see what's happening in climate, they see the risks in front of us and the opportunities, and they want to be part of the solution. And so it's wealthy families, it's individuals, it's endowments and foundations. They're thinking about the future, and they're thinking about their children and their grandkids and passing this wealth on over time and wanting to leave that wealth for their families and also for humanity. They want it to be a good place to live in the future. And the way we talk about climate, it doesn't always feel like that's going to be the case.
(00:22:08):
And so they feel like this is a place that they could do some good with their wealth. And so what we're seeing is a really positive change where 60% of millennials are actively using impact investing strategies, and 74% are defining themselves as philanthropist. And so as this big transition is happening, you're having people who are less interested potentially in actively managed public equity strategies. That may be a portion of what they do, but they're really trying to align their wealth with private investments and opportunities to do good in the world. And they're trying to do that in both public and private markets.
(00:22:48):
And so I think it's that opportunity, the changeover in these families, the new kind of wealth holders. Many more of the wealth holders are going to be women. They live longer, they're inheriting this money. Just different things matter to different people. And so there's just a real opportunity here. And I think that that gets into what's happening in climate right now. I think your listeners are very well aware, I don't think I need to go into what is climate change and why does it matter and what are the risks? But I think one of the things that's really changing that we see is the kind of massive focus on a policy level, on an investment level, for a net zero energy transition. There's falling costs for compute, there's AI, there's better sensors, there's synthetic biology. Just huge changes that mean like from climate tech investing 1.0 maybe a decade ago to now, I think we have tailwinds that have never been seen.
(00:23:46):
We're in a persistently higher inflation situation, which makes real assets like forestry and agriculture attractive in new ways. And so I think between this wealth transfer, the urgency of climate change to get capital out the door and really solve these problems, and the opportunity that we're seeing for investment, you can be in some ways impact agnostic. These things are going, the renewable energy that's being deployed, all of that needs financing, all of that needs businesses behind it, consultants behind it, enabling technologies behind it. All of those strategies, those two things move together to create I think real opportunity.
Jason Jacobs (00:24:28):
And so if a family or a foundation or whoever, you sit down with them, or their financial advisor sits down with them or team, and they say, "Okay, so we'll allocate it this way and that leaves X percentage for climate." And so there's, pick a number, 20 million, 50 million, $100 million, whatever the number is, it's going to go towards climate. Within climate, as we kind of touched on before, there's so many different areas. And each of them have their own expertise, have their own risk profile. So how do you structure that within the firm when you're doing that allocation? Is it the climate team works with the alternatives team or the fixed income team, or that? Or is there an impact team that looks across all asset classes?
Grant Mulligan (00:25:21):
So the impact team looks across all asset classes. So I look at everything from a deep tech seed stage venture in the space to private equity firms that are scaling, improving technologies, and bringing them to market. We're looking for secular trends that show what different growth opportunities are out there. We have catalytic investments that might be in a CDFI or a mutual bank that does kind of low rate lending to people who want to switch to organic, let's say, a farmer. And they need some capital, some debt capital, that would allow them to do that. We have opportunities to invest in that. So the impact team really looks across it.
(00:26:02):
And I think one of the important things is that you mentioned your question to be clear on is, I tend not to think about it as there's all this money, and some of it goes to everything else, and then a sliver of it goes to climate. We really try and think about for many of our clients what we call total portfolio activation. So in the public markets it might look like negative screens in making sure that you're not investing in oil companies, or oil and gas if that is not aligned with your values. We have some positive engagement strategies to try and get people to adopt more rigorous environmental standards or reporting. And then in the private markets, we have a number of different ways that they can invest. And so there can be open-ended funds that are diversified and uncorrelated with stocks and bonds. There are all that kind of asset classes that I mentioned previously. And so climate does not have to be a small sliver that we're working with. It can really be activated across an entire portfolio in every asset class.
(00:27:05):
And so what we sit down then is across that whole mix, and depending on where clients are at on their journey, what do they want? We have some, occasionally we'll do an internal fund or an SPV that allows clients to come in through a single allocation and get some broad diversification. Or it might be looking for direct investments in very particular areas. Some have higher risk profiles and so we might weight them a little bit more towards venture. Other clients might be a little bit more conservative, and we might push them a little bit more to establish technologies, private equity strategies that aren't taking technology risk. They're really taking execution risk.
(00:27:47):
And with things like the Inflation Reduction Act and strong track records from our managers, there's tailwinds to support them and think that the risk return profile is better balanced to what they need. So when we sit down to talk to clients about this, it's not just a single one-time conversation, it's a conversation that's rolling through their decade long engagement with us as clients where we're constantly reevaluating and understanding what their goals are, what the opportunities are, and allocating capital accordingly.
Yin Lu (00:28:17):
Hey everyone, I'm Yin, a partner at MCJ Collective, here to take a quick minute to tell you about our MCJ membership community, which was born out of a collective thirst for peer-to-peer learning and doing that goes beyond just listening to the podcast. We started in 2019 and have grown to thousands of members globally. Each week, we're inspired by people who join with different backgrounds and points of view. What we all share is a deep curiosity to learn and a bias to action around ways to accelerate solutions to climate change.
(00:28:44):
Some awesome initiatives have come out of the community. A number of founding teams have met, several nonprofits have been established, and a bunch of hiring has been done. Many early stage investments have been made, as well as ongoing events and programming like monthly women in climate meetups, idea jam sessions for early stage founders, climate book club, art workshops, and more. Whether you've been in the climate space for a while or just embarking on your journey, having a community to support you is important. If you want to learn more, head over to mcjcollective.com, and click on the members tab at the top. Thanks, and enjoy the rest of the show.
Jason Jacobs (00:29:18):
When it comes to assessing these vehicles, putting impact aside, is the assessment probably pretty typical relative to other firms that don't have an impact mandate, and then impact gets layered in, or is it a different type of evaluation process?
Grant Mulligan (00:29:39):
Yeah, great question. So it gets back to your question on theory of change, which I didn't answer in the previous one, so I can do that here, is our theory of change, we have a theory of change written for our overall climate sustainability strategy, or kind of an overview of our climate sustainable strategy. And then we have theory of change documents for both decarbonization technology and nature-based solutions. And they're relatively modest to what you might see in a university situation or something, but they're 10 page deep dives into these sectors. What are the global trends, what are the investment opportunities? And then we go deeper into specific strategies within that.
(00:30:17):
So take decarbonization technology for instance. Our theory of change there is really focused on four of the five major emitting sectors. There's energy, there's transportation, there's industry, there's the built environment, and then the fifth one, food and agriculture, that fits under our nature-based solutions. So we have all of those, and we look at the numbers and we say transportation is roughly, let's say, 16% of global emissions, but it's getting 61% of venture investment in the space. That means that our capital probably can't be super additional in that capacity, but the built environment is really overlooked, and here's why we think this is going to be a major driver of growth for the sector, what the opportunities are for climate.
(00:31:03):
And we start with, in our theory of change, our kind of guiding light is a focus on getting to net zero. We are trying to drive emissions down to zero, and ultimately we want our nature-based solutions to be a carbon sink so we can start pulling a carbon out of the air, and get us back to an equilibrium that works a little bit better atmospherically. And so what we fundamentally believe is that our theory of change requires three things, scaling existing technology, building new technology, and making better use of the planet's natural carbon sequestration resources.
(00:31:38):
And so within those three, we're looking for the right asset class, the right investment opportunity, what's going to help us get to net zero within each of these. So that's kind of the first cut. If when we're looking at impact strategies, if you can't help us achieve one of those goals, it doesn't make the cut. Even if the financial performance is strong, our impact strategies are really focused on do we think our capital can be additional in driving towards net zero. That's the first cut.
(00:32:08):
But then when we do diligence, and this is the value of what I was saying before about what I think makes AlTi kind of special, is the size of a big firm that can operate a bit like a boutique. We have all of the investment team and processes that are used to going really deep on diligence. What's a manager's track record? What's the operational due diligence? We tend to invest alongside a lot of family offices for some of our smaller venture strategies, for instance, where we might be the largest LP in the fund, if not by percentage of the fund, certainly by the assets that we have and our expertise in doing diligence and operational due diligence. And so we can provide a really high standard in that regard from our kind of long-term investment experience that extends well beyond impact.
(00:32:58):
So managers that are not meeting our typical criteria, they don't make it either. So we're able to keep a very high bar for what makes it into our impact strategy that we think offers strong financial performance and high impact. And then we do say, I should add, that there are times where we bring the same diligence rigor, but we're purely impact focused strategies. We recognize that they may not return anything. Our clients may be happy with a zero point percent return if it can be truly catalytic, but we're still making sure that these managers are not committing fraud, and that we're comfortable with the way that they're keeping track of their money and doing all of those things. So it's really bringing the two different pieces of expertise together at the same time.
Jason Jacobs (00:33:45):
And when you look across the portfolio of clients that you have, given some of the recent turbulence or correction, or whatever words you want to assign to some of the recent market changes and conditions, how have you seen their perspectives on impact and on asset allocation as it relates to impact evolve, if at all?
Grant Mulligan (00:34:12):
Yeah, it's a great question. I think right now the most acute challenge, and I think not just for us but for everybody, is let's say that, if you're a client, you want 20% of your portfolio going to private investments. If your total portfolio has gone down dramatically because the 80% that's in the market has gone down significantly as the market downturns, that means that you just have less available for private allocations while keeping that balance that you want to have.
(00:34:41):
So the acute challenge right now, without a doubt, is there are clients who are overallocated to private right now and are slowing down their investments in private markets for a period of time. But what we find is that the excitement around climate, the conviction that clients have around it, has not waned at all. We constantly have new clients coming in to the firm which provides capital to go into some of these investments.
(00:35:10):
And many of our clients, their portfolios are not static, meaning that they are having major wealth events because they sell a business or something dramatic changes in their wealth. It's not like we have one pot of money for the clients that we manage in perpetuity, and there's no incoming and outgoing. And so it gives us the opportunity to make some changes to their allocation throughout time. But that denominator effect we call it, of just the portfolio's overall shrinking in the market, is certainly a real concern and consideration. But the excitement is still there, and we're building off of that.
Jason Jacobs (00:35:48):
I forgot to ask, Grant, from a timeline standpoint, so was the firm active in climate investing back before it was called climate investing in clean tech 1.0?
Grant Mulligan (00:35:59):
They were. So the firm Tiedemann, now Alvarium Tiedemann, has grown dramatically through a series of mergers, and different groups brought different expertise along the way. But one of those groups was the Threshold Group, which was a private family office that has been investing in these strategies for many years. And many of the team that are still with the organization now, I can't remember the exact date, forgive me, for when that merger took place, but I think it's approaching a decade now. They've been investing in this space since that time and are continuing to do so.
Jason Jacobs (00:36:34):
And what's the firm's view on the postmortem from that last wave? And what changes have you made, if any, in your investing approach as things pick up again in climate?
Grant Mulligan (00:36:48):
Yeah, so having been with AlTi for less than a year, I can't speak too articulately to how that has evolved entirely. I do know that one of the benefits of being part of the larger firm is access to a number of different types of investments. So I think there's quite a bit of waiting now to, beyond venture, into private equity strategies that can really scale renewables and the energy transition. There are strategies in sustainable real assets to electrify fleets, to invest in nature-based solutions, which was a piece of what was happening at the firm for a while, kind of slowed down a little bit after the merger, and now with my coming onto the firm is growing. And I think that the macro environment is really, really beneficial for that type of change.
(00:37:44):
Following the Great Recession in 2008, interest rates are really low. Some of the benefits of investing in sustainable real assets, the return profile may not have been as good, but now with much higher interest rates, with the benefits of the cash flow and kind of cash yielding strategies from say sustain sustainable timberland, those strategies are attractive from both a financial and impact strategy, especially when you start layering in carbon markets. And what we see developing there. I think last year, or 2001, they think that the market was over a billion dollars in carbon credits and trading for the first time. We see that market growing substantially into the future, and so that gives us a new angle, and new way to invest in some of these strategies that offers new opportunities for upside and impact along the way.
Jason Jacobs (00:38:36):
One question that raises for me is, I mean we talked about net zero, and that being a core part of your theory of change, there seems to be a difference between net zero on paper versus true net zero. And then there's a lot of debate about which things are "true" and which things are just shuffling paper around. So when it comes to impact, are you generally looking to screen managers and their ability to assess that properly, or is that expertise that you're building up in house? And who owns what when it comes to those manager relationships in terms of validating that these companies are actually having the impact that they aspire to have and that they plan to have?
Grant Mulligan (00:39:26):
Yeah, it's a great question. So we do a lot of impact reporting in-house for our clients. They get a yearly impact report. And so several of us on the team are very focused on getting that impact reporting right and making sure that we're not double counting, and that we really understand what the impact is. We work with a lot of our GPs that we wanted to be a partnership and understanding what are their impact metrics. How do they manage these? We want to be careful that we don't get overly involved in the minutiae of exactly how they need to measure their portfolio companies, let's say, in venture. Understanding that they are the experts in their strategy and their thesis. But we do come to it with a very clear point of view.
(00:40:12):
So for instance, in the carbon markets right now, we are not actively buying and selling carbon offsets. We're watching how this market is playing out, we're developing some points of view. One of the things that we know we're not interested in doing is going into strategies with improved forest management practices, let's say, that we think aren't really changing the game. If you're a forestry fund who's talking about developing carbon credits, but the way that you plan to do that is simply not harvesting trees that you didn't plan to harvest anyway because they were on slopes, it would've been uneconomical to harvest them, we're not particularly interested in strategies that do that.
(00:40:50):
We want something that's new and innovative, and you can really show additionality in changing practices that take advantage of this. And so I think that some of the strategies that we expect to see early on are going to be strategies where carbon is not a pure play, it's not the sole driver of returns for the particular strategy, but it's an upside play. And so we're looking at some of the opportunities in that space. But really it's an evolving field in terms of metrics, but I think it's getting better and better. And as reporting standards evolve and become more commonplace, we're really hoping that we can be pushing the sector to be more transparent, to be more standardized. It's just not quite there yet.
Jason Jacobs (00:41:41):
I mean there's debate in the climate world around do you want more shots on goal or do you want to pick the right ones and then focus, and then back up the truck and really go deep into those and block out the noise. I kind of want to ask a similar question around managers, right? Because you talk about additionality, and so look, you can earn your way into accessing the most in-demand managers that are wildly oversubscribed that no new LP can get into because all the existing LPs are just going to keep gobbling up allocation in subsequent funds, or you can try to catalyze new managers that might not otherwise get access to capital. What are your thoughts on that? And also how do you balance additionality with just putting up the goods?
Grant Mulligan (00:42:25):
One, I will say, again, this is what's great about being a big impact practice and having many clients that are interested in this is we can do a little bit of all of the above. We can have those managers who have track records that are on fund five, six, seven, have a really proven thesis that seems to work and strategy that seems to work, that are putting capital to use on a consistent basis that we think is having a great impact. But we also have what we call an emerging manager's bucket. And this tends to be a lot of client directed investment where I tend to go out into the marketplace, and I try and meet fund managers who I think are doing things in new innovative ways.
(00:43:05):
And then I bring those to clients and I say, "Hey, I think there's something special cooking here. I don't have a track record of three funds to go on. But I think that what they're doing, their competitive advantage, their strategy, their experience in the field, their sourcing, something about what that fund has cooking up makes them an emerging manager that we want to get into before they become that GP that just sticks with their existing LP base, doesn't go." So we're actively trying to put money into those strategies.
(00:43:35):
And so for example, not naming funds specifically, but we've done some of that in regenerative agriculture recently. That's been a real strategy where I think people are taking a new kind of holistic approach to what's happening through the food and agriculture sector, and some of the different opportunities there. And we see technology and remote sensing capabilities and data. The chance to go from kind of analog systems to digital systems in a real way, working across atoms to bites that are really, really interesting. That maybe some of the big existing GPs aren't doing as much of or aren't willing to take some of those chances on.
(00:44:11):
And so again, it's the real benefit of having a big impact practice is that we can do all of the above and really do things that are truly catalytic. And we think there aren't other funders like us in there. It's people who are angel investing and putting things in on a dream. And we're going, no, we actually see something really differentiated here that we want to get behind. And then also the kind of bigger categories that many investors are used to.
Jason Jacobs (00:44:38):
So there's another thread I want to pull on, and there's a few different ways I could hit it, so I might try one or two.
Grant Mulligan (00:44:44):
Yeah, yeah, let's go.
Jason Jacobs (00:44:45):
I mean, look, you, Grant, are impact driven, right? It's clear. I mean even based on your history and the way you've navigated your own career path. How do you balance servicing existing demand amongst your clients versus generating new demand? And how do you view your role within the firm and even as a firm in that regard around causes or impact areas that really need more focus and that would be better for the world? I mean, you can't put the collective good ahead of the good of your clients obviously, but at the same time, to the extent you can align those, it's better for everyone. But where does education fit into all of this?
Grant Mulligan (00:45:24):
I would say education, I actually view as one of the core components of my job. So I don't think it's enough to just do fund manager research and bring things in for the available capital. We need more capital coming into this. That is absolutely clear and that is my north star. And I really believe that it's what's going to be a driver for the growth of our business and for the impact that we want to have on the world. We have to get more capital into this.
(00:45:47):
So some of that more traditionally might look like education materials for new clients so that we can get impact aligned clients into the business. But it's also, I spend a lot of time with our advisors who may have 30, 40 years experience in building portfolios for their clients, but aren't really sure how to bring up impact to clients they've had all along. Or somewhere along the way their clients said, "I'm not really interested in impact," maybe without fully understanding what that means. So maybe by the time this airs, I'm not sure, in the next couple weeks we're going to be releasing a blog post that's kind of like the portfolio benefits of climate sustainability for non-impact clients. If you don't-
Jason Jacobs (00:46:31):
I love that. I love that.
Grant Mulligan (00:46:31):
If you don't view yourself as kind of a self-identified impact investor, that's okay. What I want you to be paying attention to is Inflation Reduction Act. I want you to be paying attention to geopolitical risks, and why Europe is making such a fast energy transition and what's happening in that regard. What is China investing in? We can tell I think the climate story from a pure macro kind of secular changes going on. And so I'm trying to find these clients where they are, and really lay out education opportunities for them.
(00:47:06):
And then I would say the other big piece what the fund is advancing that is not really a distinction between impact and non-impact is endowment style investing. For many of our clients, it's just been a 60-40 split. That's what most people are familiar with, is 60% of their investments should go into stocks, 40% into bonds. We're bringing more of the Yale portfolio style to clients in thinking beyond that. How does private equity, private credit, real estate, hedge funds, real assets, how does this all come into play? And what that allows you to do, I think a little bit, is investing for the very long term.
(00:47:43):
And this is where I think our clients drive for impact. It has a real opportunity to bring more money into the field, is investing for climate is investing for returns today, but it's also investing for the world you want to see generations from now. And endowments in wealth preservation are really meant to sustain wealth over generations as well. And so I think you get a really beautiful alignment between the goals of the clients and their long-term orientation and the long-term orientation of the impact that we're trying to provide.
(00:48:14):
Now there's urgency and there's things that we're getting out the door because capital needs to get there today to avoid the biggest challenges, but I think these stories align very well. So I would say I spend, it's hard to say exactly, but I would say 50-50 between me trying to really do education for advisors, for clients, in writing, in doing things like My Climate Journey Podcast, and really explain how clients like ours can make an impact in the space. And then the real diligence in going out to the managers and trying to go, okay, what fits that theory of change? What fits where our clients are on that journey, and how can we bring things onto our platform that clients can get behind?
Jason Jacobs (00:48:54):
Coming back to what you were talking about before around additionality in this emerging manager bucket. So emerging manager in itself is zany because it isn't in the box. Because in the box would be the traditional way with a track record. That's the fully in the box. But then there's the emerging manager without a track record, but then everything else could be in the box as it relates to approach and portfolio construction, and things like that. And then there's some firms, like Y Combinator as an example, with their fund or maybe a seed fund in traditional tech that's got a large portfolio construction. Or these new funds, I saw one that was providing service provider, but it's sweat equity instead of just dollars or blended with dollars. So there's these different approaches. What other kinds of zany things might be in play or exciting too? And then what kinds of zany things are non-starters for you guys as a firm?
Grant Mulligan (00:49:56):
One of the things that I've been looking for that I don't see as much, and I wouldn't even call it zany, but I think it's hard and people haven't figured out how to apply it quite yet, is open-ended funds are particularly interesting to me. I think the classic model in private markets is your 10 year fund, 2% management fee, 20% carry, execute your strategy for three or four years, make investments. After you have about half the fund deployed, go raise your next fund. And you just kind of keep this on a consistent cycle. And that's a tried and true. That's a good strategy. We invest behind that strategy.
(00:50:32):
But open-ended funds have a number of potential advantages for deploying capital on a somewhat more regular basis over a long time horizon. Clients can put more money in on a consistent basis instead of the one time to get into the fund at the very beginning, the first 18 months before the fund closes. There's real tax efficiencies behind it. And then I think the other piece that goes along with that is, again, what I was talking about, the kind of long-term orientation. You end up with something that's cash generative, tax advantage, good for a return perspective that you never need to sell.
(00:51:09):
And so in so much of the private equity right now, you build something really great, but then you have to sell it. And our clients are long-term and so to match long-term investment with that can be really helpful where you never then have to sell the great business. You can just kind of forever use those cash flows to be invested in high rates. You're better off if you don't have to sell. Maybe sometimes you need to sell, you move the portfolio around. It doesn't have to be static by any means, but I think it's strategy where you can be better if you hold things over the long term.
(00:51:42):
And I think that's just really, really well aligned with an impact focus. So that's one thing that frankly we don't see lot of. And if I saw more of, it's much easier to put capital into that structure in part because it's more liquid than a 10 year fund that kind of locks it up for that 10 year period. And so strategies like that are really interesting. I wouldn't necessarily call it zany, but I don't think it's been applied to as many maybe markets and strategies as it could be that we'd love to see some more.
(00:52:09):
I'm trying to think of strategies that we're absolutely out on. We're pretty open-minded, I think. I take a lot of meetings with people who are willing to think of things in different ways. I think some of the catalytic investments are interesting in some that are FDIC protected, you can put a quarter million dollars into a bank that loans money out. And it's one of the things I like that some of those strategies do is they let the investor pick the interest rate. They can go anywhere from like 6% to 0%. And it's really interesting how many clients choose to be on the lower end. They want that money to be catalytic. And so finding ways to get money into that.
(00:52:52):
And then we have strategies on the platform where I think this goes to our kind of inclusive innovation piece where there's a lot of people who are unbanked, or shut out of these systems, or don't have access to capital. And I think we are much more willing to work with BIPOC populations and others to really get capital to those places. Because we think there are great ideas coming out of that space and out of that sector that maybe there's not as much attention being paid to. And so I think that we see it as a real opportunity to do good in the world, partner with great organizations and teams, and on strategies that are bringing access to capital to places where it hasn't always been freely available.
Jason Jacobs (00:53:34):
And I'm sure this varies a lot on a client by client basis, but for the clients that do care about impact, how many ideas that you're deploying capital against come from the client versus coming from you? Because I guess there's different ways. Could also come from a client, you say, "Wait a minute, that's a good idea. It might be relevant to these other clients as well." But how does it typically go if there is a typical?
Grant Mulligan (00:53:57):
I absolutely love when clients bring me deals. And they're out there in their networks. We have people who deeply, deeply care about these issues. They may work in the field, they may work in the industry and they know who's good. And so it's very much a two-way conversation. And then I think, again, this goes to one of the central themes of our conversation is that our clients are really along a spectrum of goals and interests. And we're able to, with our firm, support all of them.
(00:54:25):
So I think everything we do is tailored to the client. And some clients want our best ideas and are happy to follow with whatever solutions we come up with. So I have a number of clients where I'm just bringing things to the platform and to our advisors, and they're putting the clients in. They know what their clients care about. It might be some of the diversified access funds that we talked about. We have ways that we have clients who are like, "I'm all in on impact, but you guys just take care of it. You go."
(00:54:53):
And then we have others who, I have with one client for instance who's deeply interested in regenerative agriculture, we have pretty regular, I'd say, monthly to six week check-ins to talk about what we're seeing in the pipeline. What's out there, what's going on? The best ideas make it onto the platform for many clients to invest in. And then there's others where we might do client directed investment where we can handle all the paperwork, we can help get them into the fund. We have the relationship to be able to do that, but it's going to be on that individual client basis that's really going to come in. So it really spans the spectrum.
Jason Jacobs (00:55:29):
And is the client, I'm not sure if I'm going to use the right wording here, I'll show my newness to institutional investing, but is the climate always the ultimate decision maker, or is there any capital that you're deploying that's fully discretionary? And is that, also, is that the right word?
Grant Mulligan (00:55:46):
Yeah, so great question. So the clients that I was kind of mentioning that really trust us to just bring our best ideas forward and they follow along with that, that tends to be what you could call more discretionary capital. It's at the firm's discretion where that goes. We have a number of other clients who I would put it in the non-discretionary bucket, meaning that we present them with the idea. For many of our foundations, for instance, they might have three board meetings a year, and the board has to approve that strategy to go into the portfolio. They're foundations, they have mandates, they have governance structures, and we want to make sure that we're obviously aligned with those. And so we'll bring our best ideas forward.
(00:56:29):
Some clients are it's non-discretionary in that they have to approve, but they're trusting our best ideas. And then we have others who really want to get in the weeds with us and really understand why did we pick this one among the 15 in that sector that we looked at? And they want to go much deeper. And so, again, I don't want it to be a cop out answer, but it really runs the gamut for clients. And that I think is one of the core things we're trying to build here is a narrative around climate sustainability strategies that are informed by science, that shows clients at different stages of the journey how climate sustainability benefits can impact their portfolio, whether that's through their total portfolio activation or it's their very first investments in the space.
Jason Jacobs (00:57:12):
And I want to ask you a two-part question, and we're nearing the end here, but one is, if you could change one thing that would enable you to recommend more impact investments with full conviction to your clients, what would that be? What's missing? And then same question in terms of just having a higher batting average, a better reception of the things that you do recommend.
Grant Mulligan (00:57:38):
Yeah, it's a great question. And it goes back to, I think what you asked of, are we just serving our kind of impact clients as they exist, or are we trying to widen the pool? And it gets to, you talk a lot about waving the magic wand. What would you waive to change anything? And I think the spirit of this question is I think that there's a real opportunity to be optimistic. And I talk to a lot of clients, and I try to understand what they care about. And while it's not exclusively true, almost all clients talk to me about making a better world in some capacity. And I think that could be for tomorrow, that could be for their kids, their grandkids, like we already talked about.
(00:58:20):
But I think that that desire for a better world really stems from a belief that the world is not in great shape today. But it's fundamentally hopeful because you have to believe that you can make the world a better place to want to do that, to put your capital behind it. And I think that some of the more apocalyptic messaging around climate change, which is a great catalyst for many people, and if there's an alarm bell to be rung, it needs to be rung, but I think we're getting to the stage where I have so many clients who want to make an impact that are fundamentally builders at heart.
(00:58:53):
And if you want to be a builder, you have to be fundamentally optimistic. You have to see a problem and believe it's solvable, that there's a pathway to fixing it. And so I think there's some excitement in the field that is warranted that you can, as technologies and mindset shift, as kind of opportunities abound, I think that there are ways to make people feel like through their investments that they're not just solving crises, or fighting a lost cause, but that their money really can make a difference in the space.
(00:59:31):
And I see that telling the story to clients and using that as a motivator to get them in, it's not painting an overly rosy picture. We still have big problems to solve and we've got to solve them. They're hard problems. But I think that problems are inevitable, but we have to believe they're solvable. And I think that if I could bring one thing to my clients, it's more strategies that are like, look, this is not just pure hopeful way out into the future, but they're scaling technologies, there's new technologies out there that really can make the world a better place.
Jason Jacobs (01:00:08):
A few other questions, and then we can wrap. One is just, I mean, talking to you is a breath of fresh air in terms of if I had a big pool of assets, and I cared a lot about climate and I was trying to figure out how to allocate it across different asset classes and things like that, the kind of help and the role that you guys are playing is so important. Who's doing that for philanthropy? Do you do that for your clients for their philanthropy as well? And if not, does that exist?
Grant Mulligan (01:00:37):
Yeah. So many of our clients, it's philanthropic capital that we're managing. They are foundations or endowments, family offices dedicated to philanthropic causes.
Jason Jacobs (01:00:50):
Are you managing the grants and the investments, or only the investment piece?
Grant Mulligan (01:00:57):
It varies by client. It varies by client. We have different capacities that we can do for different clients, and we certainly bring in a lot of partners who can help with philanthropy. But we do advise certainly some clients on the philanthropic portion. And so we view them as two sides of the same coin. We don't believe that investing in climate sustainability is a silver bullet, and so put all your money into the things that can get market rate returns. We really do believe that there is value in philanthropic capital. And so one of the things I try and provide is because I come from the NGO world, the nonprofits, and working at The Nature Conservancy, is what strategies have I seen that work? Where might you want to put some capital behind this, and really understand the causes that matter to our clients? But it's a full kind of spectrum offering that we have. And we certainly think about philanthropic capital as part of the solution.
Jason Jacobs (01:01:49):
And then the last question, it's kind of two parts. One is just for anyone that's listening that's inspired, and that might want to be a client, just what makes a good client profile and who might you want to hear from? And then same question about who might you want to hear from outside of clients, since it sounds like you are trying to get yourselves up to speed to inform your clients. So maybe there's perspectives out there that might be helpful for you.
Grant Mulligan (01:02:10):
Yeah, thank you, Jason. I really appreciate that. So I think for our clients, we service a wide range of high net worth individuals that work in this space. Like I said, I'll just repeat that our clients are individuals, they're institutions, they're family offices, family led businesses, foundations. Generally, all many ultra high net worth individuals who want to make a difference in the space, we'd love to talk to them. And it is easy to find us online at AlTi Global, Alvarium Tiedemann. I'm sure there'll be a link in the show notes or something. Easy to find us as far as that goes.
(01:02:49):
And as you said, who do we want to talk to? We're trying to be an ideas company. We are not just checking a box. We are trying to move the conversation forward. So one that I mentioned is I would love to talk to more people who are doing blended finance, who have opportunities for clients to come in a catalytic way to go get more projects done on the ground. I see a lot of opportunity in avoided conversion, debt for nature swaps, restoration projects on a big scale where we have clients who want to do projects in their backyard, in places that really matter to them. The financing kind of hasn't worked out yet. How do we get a fund around that? So I can't go due diligence on each individual deal. That doesn't work. But if someone can figure out a way to roll those up and has ideas about how to do that, I'd really love to hear it.
(01:03:42):
And then I think the other one I mentioned was the open-ended funds. Really interested in open-ended opportunities in sustainable real assets. What can we go put capital into that we can put capital into on a revolving basis? And what I like about that as well is strategies then can evolve. You can go try things and experiment and learn what's working in the carbon markets, what's working from improved forest management practices, or other regenerative soil practices. We can see what's happening on the ground. We can measure it in real time and over years and continue to adapt together and grow and see what works. And we have the type of patient capital that is interested in those type of strategies. So hopefully that's enough there. And of course, always interested in people who are doing those 10 year funds too. It's not exclusionary. If you've got cool ideas, and you think you've got a differentiated strategy, we of course want to hear from you.
Jason Jacobs (01:04:34):
Great. And Grant, anything I didn't ask that I should have, or any parting words?
Grant Mulligan (01:04:38):
I just think that this is one of those spaces where I am really excited, and it goes to what I was saying before about be optimistic a little bit. I think there's a real opportunity to shift kind of the environmental side of this and the climate side of this from telling people what they can't do to what they really can do. And what you can build and what you can really tell an exciting story about. And so I'm really on a mission to kind of help spread that story with our clients and the broader investment community.
(01:05:05):
And I'm really hoping that if we're successful, we're going to have a very positive impact on the world and help people make money along the way. I think that it's okay that that's a part of it. But I'm really bullish on the kind of impact opportunity we have ahead of us, and the changes I'm seeing in these market trends and changeover in capital. And I'm just really excited that I get to work with you, Jason, and others in the field to really advance us forward. I think we're on the cusp of something really fantastic here.
Jason Jacobs (01:05:34):
Well, I second the motion. And I can't thank you enough, Grant, for the work that you're doing. It's important work, and it's a refreshing perspective. But also for taking the time and for being willing to share your work with me and with listeners as well. A lot of LPs are still pretty skittish about that, and you guys were excited about the opportunity. And it means a lot to us. So thank you.
Grant Mulligan (01:05:56):
Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, this is a collaborative space. We're all in it together. We got to share our lessons and stories, or we're never going to get the changes that we want. So happy to be a part of it. Thank you.
Jason Jacobs (01:06:04):
Thanks again for joining us on the My Climate Journey Podcast.
Cody Simms (01:06:08):
At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem solving capacity.
Jason Jacobs (01:06:17):
If you'd like to learn more about MCJ Collective, visit us at mcjcollective.com. And if you have a guest suggestion, let us know that via Twitter @MCJPod.
Yin Lu (01:06:30):
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Cody Simms (01:06:40):
Thanks, and see you next episode.
