Osmosis Investment Management

Osmosis Investment Management is a quantitative environmental asset manager established in 2009 by Ben Dear and Gerrit Heyns. Dear, the current CEO, founded the company after the 2008 financial crisis, driven by the belief that capital allocation could be a force for good. His entrepreneurial journey included various ventures before he was inspired by 'An Inconvenient Truth' to align his career with sustainability.

Headquartered in London, with a growing presence in North America and operations in the Netherlands and Australia, the firm is majority-owned by its management and employees. Key investors include Capricorn Investment Group, Oxford University Endowment Management, Nikko AM, SuMi Trust AM, and Australia's Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation (CSC).

The firm's investment philosophy posits that a company's efficient use of resources is a predictor of future value and that markets misprice sustainability. Osmosis serves institutional and wealth clients, such as pension funds, endowments, and family offices, by offering a range of quantitative equity and fixed-income strategies. The business model centers on its proprietary "Model of Resource Efficiency" (MoRE). This model analyzes corporate environmental data—specifically carbon emissions, water consumption, and waste generation—relative to a company's value creation.

The MoRE factor is used to construct portfolios that overweight resource-efficient companies and underweight inefficient ones, while managing risk relative to benchmarks like the MSCI World. This quantitative approach allows Osmosis to deliver portfolios that aim for better risk-adjusted returns while demonstrating significantly lower environmental footprints, with reported average reductions of over 50% in carbon, water, and waste compared to their benchmarks. The company's offerings are available through various structures, including UCITS funds, ETFs, total return swaps, and separately managed accounts.

Keywords: environmental asset management, quantitative investing, sustainable finance, resource efficiency, ESG integration, MoRE model, low-carbon investing, water footprint, waste reduction, systematic equity, sustainable fixed income, institutional investment, financial analysis, portfolio construction, environmental data, alpha generation, risk-adjusted returns, Ben Dear, London, UCITS funds, sustainable investment solutions