1BusinessWorld Editorial
Resource efficiency offers a practical way to explore the relationship between a company’s operations and its financial performance. For Fadi Zaher, chief investment officer at Osmosis Investment Management, the opportunity begins with a clear economic proposition. A company that uses fewer inputs than a comparable competitor may be better positioned to sustain its margins as input prices rise.
In a conversation with Dr. Henning Stein featured in the September 15, 2026, 1FinanceWorld session, Zaher illustrates that proposition through a hypothetical comparison between cement producers. More efficient use of inputs could give one producer a cost advantage. The example explains how the proposed mechanism could work, with the investment outcome remaining a matter for evaluation.
A meaningful comparison connects what a business produces with the resources it uses. Establishing that operating context allows analysts to distinguish the contribution of efficiency from differences in business models.
Make operating data meaningful
Zaher emphasizes comparisons within the same industry and operations. Carbon, water and waste information can contribute to the analysis. His account highlights the additional structuring and interpretation needed to use that information alongside familiar financial measures.
That creates an opportunity for careful interpretation. A resource footprint carries different meaning for a utility, an industrial company and a financial institution. Understanding those activities helps analysts assess each business on an appropriate basis.
Corporate leaders can make that analysis more useful by connecting environmental information to production and cost. Explaining how resource use changes alongside output gives investors a clearer view of the operating improvements a company is pursuing.
Clarify the sources of investment performance
Zaher describes a process designed to isolate resource efficiency from other investment exposures. Sector classifications support like-for-like comparisons. The process then seeks to neutralize sector effects and other investment styles, including momentum, value and quality, while applying stock-specific risk controls.
A portfolio’s performance can reflect several influences, including its exposure to industries and market trends. Distinguishing those contributions helps analysts evaluate the resource-efficiency thesis on its own terms.
The method provides a framework for investigating the intended signal. Establishing a sustained return premium requires evidence about investment outcomes over time. A clear account of the expected economic advantage, together with evaluation of other performance drivers, makes that investigation more informative.
Strengthen research with accountable AI
Zaher describes generative AI tools as useful for summarizing research and structuring information. He describes that assistance as support for research, while a repeatable investment process requires calibrated signals and explainable capital allocation.
Stein notes that quantitative methods and machine learning preceded the current interest in generative AI. Zaher emphasizes consistent rules and an explanation of how a recommendation was reached. In his account, generative tools contribute through a supporting research role.
For leaders adopting AI in analytical work, the opportunity is to expand what a team can examine while keeping its decisions clear and accountable. Defining the tool’s contribution, reviewing its output and assigning responsibility give that opportunity a practical structure.
Connect technology ambition with infrastructure readiness
Zaher and Stein also explore technology valuations and market concentration. Zaher identifies the cash flows of successful businesses as an important distinction between the current technology cycle and an earlier period. His approach combines attention to those businesses with disciplined management of investment exposure.
He also connects AI’s expansion with the pace of electricity infrastructure development. In his view, valuations may need to be reassessed if AI deployment advances faster than the electricity infrastructure required to support it. Stein considers how smaller models could change computing requirements, while Zaher identifies wider productivity gains as another potential outcome. These possibilities provide scenarios for analysis, with their eventual outcomes still to be established.
This connects the technology conversation with the resource-efficiency proposition. Digital growth has physical foundations. Understanding the resources available for expansion, the timing of supply and how effectively businesses use those inputs gives investors a fuller basis for evaluating opportunity.
Zaher’s account points to a constructive discipline for investment and business leadership. Compare similar activities, explain the mechanism through which efficiency could improve margins and evaluate its contribution to performance. Companies can support that work by making their operating progress clear. Connecting resource use with output and economic value gives leaders a stronger foundation for informed decisions about future growth.
Watch the full conversation at Why resource efficiency is the ultimate margin differentiator.
