But what’s most exciting is how our calculator is different to others you may have seen – it shows not only the potential returns your investments could have but also the expected impact of your investment. So, as well as seeing what your returns could be, you also see how your investment could help the planet through lower landfill waste and greenhouse gas emissions (CO2e footprint). 
 
Please remember, this information is guidance and not personal advice. When investing, your money is at risk, and you may get back less than you put in.

Calculate your potential returns and impact 

If you’re considering investing and want to get to grips with how your investment might perform, our investment calculator can help. Whether you are looking to invest through our Stocks and Shares ISA or an Impact Investment Account, our investment calculator helps you see how much money you might make (or potentially lose) from investing. It shows different possible results based on potential market performance in the future. 

It's kind of like a weather forecast for investments — helping you understand what might happen but not guaranteeing it. The real result could be better or worse than what the calculator shows. 

The calculator looks at three different situations: 

1. ‘If markets perform worse’ – This is when things don’t go well, and the investment makes less money or potentially loses money (a cautious estimation). 
2. ‘Projected value’ – This is what we expect to happen based on typical market returns (a balanced estimation). 
3. ‘If markets perform better’ – This shows what could happen if the investment does really well and grows more than expected (an optimistic estimation). 

What factors are used to forecast returns? 

There are two main types of forecasting models – ‘deterministic’ and ‘stochastic’. A ‘deterministic model’ only looks at fixed rates of return. It’s a prediction where all factors stay the same. It assumes things will always happen one way, with no surprises. This wouldn’t work well for showing how investment returns might change, because there are many things that can affect the results. 

Our investment calculator uses a ‘stochastic model’. This means it looks at different possibilities and takes into account things that might change or be uncertain. These factors are explained below. Because there is some uncertainty, this type of model shows more than one possible outcome. We show three possible outcomes, which are the three scenarios described above. 

The calculator uses four main factors to help predict how an investment might grow: 

1. Market conditions  – This looks at how the market is doing right now. For example, are the types of investments the fund holds going up or down at the moment? How volatile have they been recently? 
2. Long-term expectations  – This looks at how the types of investments the fund holds have previously performed over a longer time frame. 
3. Realistic modelling  – This looks at patterns from the past to see what the risk and return of the types of held investments has been. What observable patterns can we see in historic data? How do the risk and return vary over time?
4. Other information  – This includes things that aren’t directly about the stock market, such as changes in government rules like monetary policy, climate change, or big events like Brexit. 

These factors are updated every month to make sure the calculator shows the most current information. They are also regularly evaluated to ensure an accurate representation of the range of potential returns. 

How accurate will these projections be? 

Even though the calculator gives you an idea of how your investment might perform, it can’t guarantee the future. However, by looking at past scenarios and comparing them to actual results, we believe the stochastic model we use does a good job of predicting outcomes that match real fund performance. This includes during periods with unexpected events like the 2008 financial crash or the Covid-19 pandemic. Triodos will always keep working to make the calculator better as part of our ongoing review process. 

In short, the investment calculator is a tool to give you an idea of what could happen with your investment, but the real results can be different.  

Find out more about Impact Investing here.