PRIME – Sustainable Investment for Foundations

Usually only five percent of a foundation’s assets are used for its programming purposes – the other 95 percent are invested to maintain the endowment’s capital stock. If this money was to be invested into sustainable, social and ecological responsible enterprises, the effect of the foundation’s work could be multiplied.

The PRIME toolkit therefore aims at supporting endowments in their efforts to realise a sustainable investment strategy. The toolkit summarises concepts and strategies of sustainable investment and provides practical examples from other foundations and how they manage to invest their assets in a sustainable manner. The toolkit offers a clear concept on how to integrate sustainability into the management of assets. Therefore, it does not only provide assistance to endowments, but also to all other financial service providers that are interested in sustainable asset management.

This PRIME toolkit is based on the Primer for Responsible Investment Management of Endowments (PRIME Toolkit), published in 2006 by the European Sustainable Investment Forum Eurosif. It was revised, updated and adapted to fit the specificities of German-speaking countries.