Jupiter Ecology Fund

As one of the longest-running environmentally-focused investment funds, the Jupiter Ecology Fund was launched in 1988, when a focus on such areas was seen as very specialised and somewhat ‘unusual’. Fast forward to today and our environmental challenges remain, but they have become a lot more urgent. The fund’s investment approach has remained the same since day one – to identify long-term investment opportunities in companies that provide solutions to our environmental challenges. This fund invests across environmental themes that include renewable energy, pollution reduction, resource efficiency, water treatment and infrastructure, and waste recycling.

Is it different today?

Since the fund was launched over 30 years ago, it has changed little. It remains focused on investing in companies that address global sustainability challenges. But the market has changed beyond recognition. Over the last few years, there have been a lot of new funds launched that focus on the world’s environmental challenges and offer a ‘sustainable’ approach to investing. The whole sector is going through a transformation. What was once a cottage industry is becoming substantial, respected, and more disciplined. But it is still very complicated – no two such funds are the same.

Jupiter Ecology Fund Portfolio Managers

Jon Wallace

The fund is managed by Jon Wallace, a member of Jupiter’s Sustainable Investing team with over 10 years investment experience. Before joining Jupiter, Jon worked at Forum for the Future, a non-profit organisation that works in partnership with business, government and civil society to accelerate the shift towards a sustainable future.

Noelle Guo

Noelle joined Jupiter in 2021 and is the co-manager of the Jupiter Ecology Fund. Prior to joining Jupiter, Noelle worked at Pictet, where she was an Investment Manager on the Global Emerging Markets Equities Strategy.

Examples of companies

Sometimes, the only way to really understand what a fund does is to look at the companies it invests in.

Vestas is one of the largest holdings in the fund – a Danish company that manufactures, installs, and services wind farms across the globe.

Advanced Drainage Systems is another holding in the fund. It is a manufacturer of recycled thermoplastic pipe in the United States, with products designed to handle the full lifecycle of rainfall including stormwater drainage. As the industry leader driving the shift from concrete and steel to plastic pipeline, the company has cost-competitive products capturing market share with lower environmental impacts.

And finally, Ansys provide engineering solutions to minimise customers’ resource and material use by reducing physical prototypes in the R&D and testing phase of product development. Longer-term, both regulation and consumer expectations are driving companies to ‘design out’ waste by using techniques to design their products to be recyclable at the end of their usable life, with Ansys solutions amongst the enabling technologies.

The fund typically invests in about 40 to 60 companies like this.

While the market for sustainable investing develops at a fast pace, this could be a fund worth considering if you are thinking of investing for the first time and the area of environmental sustainability is important. In addition to the Jupiter Ecology Fund, there are also three more funds on the Barclays Funds List that focus on this area of the market. Find out more information on these funds.

Correct at the time of publishing.

To diversify your investment, you may like to consider our own Barclays Ready-made Investments (RMI). The RMI are just one example of a range of diversified funds which allow you to select the level of risk you are most comfortable with. These Barclays multi-asset funds invest in passive funds across a range of asset classes and regions, offering a globally diversified solution for investors. Ready-made Investments are not the only funds that we offer and they won’t be appropriate for everyone.

Past performance of the fund and its manager are not a reliable indicator of their future performance.

We don’t offer personal investment advice so if you’re unsure you should seek that independently.

Funds are designed for the long term so you should only consider them if you can stay invested for at least five years.

These are our current opinions but the future, as ever, is uncertain and outcomes may differ.

Read the Assessment of Value report [PDF, 3.1MB] for funds run by Barclays.