Learning by Doing: Lessons from WRI’s Sustainable Investing Journey

This case study details the World Resources Institute's (WRI) transition from a traditional financial-return-focused investment strategy to a sustainable investing approach for its $40 million endowment. Starting in 2014, WRI integrated environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria into its portfolio management, moving from a model of internal board oversight to a partnership with an Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO). The document outlines the challenges of ESG data interpretation, the decision to prioritize holistic ESG integration over simple fossil fuel divestment, and the financial results of this shift.

• WRI shifted its $40 million endowment strategy in 2014 to align investments with its sustainability mission, moving away from a historical focus on maximizing financial returns without considering sustainability factors.
• The organization rejected a narrow fossil fuel divestment strategy in favor of a holistic ESG approach, concluding that simple blacklisting was insufficient to drive a transition to a sustainable economy and was logistically difficult for a fund-based portfolio.
• WRI encountered significant difficulties with ESG data, noting that third-party data often lacked nuance, contained reporting biases, and used sector-specific rankings that did not represent absolute environmental impact.
• To improve oversight and agility, WRI transitioned its investment governance in October 2016 to an Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) model, partnering with Goldman Sachs (including the Imprint Capital Advisors team).
• WRI's sustainable investing framework consists of three pillars: prioritizing best-in-class ESG performance in equities, selecting managers with strong ESG integration competencies, and allocating 15 percent of the portfolio to a private equity 'impact' carve-out for sustainability solutions.
• Financial results as of June 2018 indicate that the sustainable portfolio performed close to its benchmark with lower risk; the portfolio trailed the reference benchmark by 0.19 percent but with 0.09 percent lower volatility.
• Despite progress, WRI still holds approximately 20 percent of its portfolio in non-ESG integrated products, primarily due to a lack of high-quality sustainable options in asset classes like high-yield fixed income and hedge funds.

APA

World Resources Institute (2018). Learning by Doing: Lessons from WRI’s Sustainable Investing Journey. https://www.wri.org/insights/learning-doing-lessons-wris-sustainable-investing-journey

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Learning by Doing: Lessons from WRI’s Sustainable Investing Journey. 2018. https://www.wri.org/insights/learning-doing-lessons-wris-sustainable-investing-journey.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Learning by Doing: Lessons from WRI’s Sustainable Investing Journey |date=6 September 2018 |url=https://www.wri.org/insights/learning-doing-lessons-wris-sustainable-investing-journey |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitute2018learning, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Learning by Doing: Lessons from WRI’s Sustainable Investing Journey}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2018}, month = sep, url = {https://www.wri.org/insights/learning-doing-lessons-wris-sustainable-investing-journey}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }