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NB. This article is part of our recent publication, the study guide Duurzaam beleggen door particulieren bij banken 2025 (available in Dutch only).
Hadewych Kuiper has been Managing Director of Triodos Investment Management B.V., a wholly owned subsidiary of Triodos Bank N.V., since February 2022. In this role, she oversees the organisation’s investment activities. She joined Triodos Investment Management in 2013 as Commercial Director.
Before joining Triodos Investment Management, Hadewych Kuiper worked at Triodos Bank from 2008, where she headed the International Marketing & Corporate Communications department. She also has over ten years of experience as a market strategy consultant in the financial services, telecommunications and media sectors. Hadewych has been a board member of the Netherlands Advisory Board on Impact Investing since 2020.
What trends does Triodos IM see in sustainable savings and investments among private clients?
The popularity of sustainable savings and investments continues to grow. In addition to striving for financial returns, more and more private investors and savers want to achieve a positive social or environmental impact with their investments or savings. We also see this reflected in the increase in the number of savings and investment products with a sustainable character, from light green to dark green. In addition, we see a shift from ‘sustainable investing’ to ‘impact investing’, where private individuals look at returns and the actual impact their investments have on the world. In general, we see that sustainable saving and investing is no longer a niche, but a mainstream choice for more and more private clients who want to contribute to a more sustainable future.
How have customer preferences and expectations regarding sustainability developed in recent years?
More and more private investors are opting for investments that meet sustainability requirements, such as ESG investing or impact investing. Which is of course a very positive development. This is accompanied by an increasing demand for transparency. Investors rightly want to have a clear picture of what exactly they are investing in. This is largely achieved by stricter regulations around sustainable investment, such as the SFDR (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation) and the EU Taxonomy. The regulations require financial institutions to provide more information about the sustainability of their investment products. This helps private investors to make more conscious and better informed sustainable choices.
How does Triodos IM experience the current SFDR regulations, both internally and from a customer perspective?
Although we absolutely welcome the SFDR regulations, there are also critical notes to be made about the way the regulations are set up. The SFDR was introduced to increase transparency in how sustainability risks and opportunities are integrated into investment decisions. And this is exactly where the design flaw lies. The regulations are designed in such a way that the burden of proof lies with the sustainable investment products. They must have processes, data and reporting in place to make their ‘green’ claims come true. However, no reporting is required if an investment product does not carry the ‘sustainable’ label. Investors in these products therefore have no idea what their money is ‘doing’ apart from the financial return.
Interestingly enough, it is precisely these investment products that are causing the most damage and where the much-needed transition should come from. That is the opposite of what we need. It is like a world where a pack of cigarettes has no health warning and an apple requires a whole leaflet with the positive and negative effects. It would be nice if the legislator would require all funds to be transparent. That would be fair and investors would get a much better picture of what they are investing in.
What challenges or opportunities arise from the SFDR in the context of retail investors?
The SFDR offers both challenges and opportunities for retail investors. The regulation increases transparency, but the information is not always easy, which can be challenging for investors who are less familiar with sustainable investing. That said, the regulation does offer the opportunity to make better-informed choices. However, as mentioned before, these choices would be even better and easier to make if the regulations were to expand further and also non-sustainable funds had to report on the positive and negative impact of their investment choices.
Which themes (e.g. climate, biodiversity, social equality) appeal most to private clients within sustainable investing?
Climate change is and remains one of the most prominent themes for private investors focused on sustainability. Many investors no longer want to invest in fossil fuels and instead opt for renewable energy, energy efficiency and climate-friendly technologies. We also regularly see this combined with interest in investments that contribute to a circular economy. In addition, we clearly see an increased interest in biodiversity and nature conservation.
Finally, the theme of social inequality is also one that has the attention of many investors, especially in the context of increasing polarization worldwide. This can vary from investing in financial inclusion in emerging markets or social impact bonds that focus on social housing, accessible healthcare, balanced economic growth, to investing in companies that have an explicit focus on issues such as gender equality, working conditions, fair pay and improving living standards.
What options does Triodos IM offer clients who want to invest in specific themes such as biodiversity or the energy transition?
Triodos IM manages around 20 different funds that all make a positive contribution to people, the environment and society. Our impact funds invest in shares and bonds of listed companies that contribute to our 5 transition themes (energy, raw materials, food, well-being and society), as well as in non-listed sustainable companies and projects, microfinance institutions and SME banks in emerging markets, innovative sustainable energy solutions or organic farmers.
For example, think of Triodos Future Generations Fund, a fund that invests in listed companies that directly contribute to the well-being and development of children. Or Triodos Groenfonds, the largest green fund in the Netherlands and a pioneer in green investing for more than 25 years. The fund finances more than 200 projects in local clean energy, sustainable construction and organic farming in the Netherlands. It also contributes to the energy transition in emerging countries.
What developments does Triodos IM expect in the field of sustainable savings and investments in the coming years?
We expect the market for sustainable savings and investments to continue to develop positively in the coming years. These developments are driven by further regulations, but also because more and more investors and savers are aware of the impact they want to achieve with their money.
It is expected that the regulations surrounding sustainable investments will be further strengthened and refined, both at European and international level. This could lead to stricter reporting requirements on sustainability performance and legal obligations for companies to take climate risks into account and to account for their climate impact.
Are there new products or initiatives in development to respond to the growing demand for thematic impact investing?
An important starting point for us in product development is to look at which global challenges require solutions and how investors can make a positive contribution to this. In this way, we ensure that capital can flow specifically to the most urgent challenges. An important point of attention for us in the coming years will be the theme of biodiversity. Climate change has an enormous impact, but the next wave that is coming our way is the rapid loss of biodiversity. In this respect, we are clearly at a turning point. Investors can make a real difference here too.
Triodos Bank and Triodos IM have committed to invest at least EUR 500 million in nature-based solutions by 2030, as part of our biodiversity targets. This includes focus areas such as soil restoration in agriculture and nature restoration, as well as the creation of new ecosystems in urban areas. At Triodos IM, we are actively exploring the possibilities for a nature-based solutions (NBS) fund to preserve and strengthen biodiversity.
