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Please see the below article received from AJ Bell late on Friday afternoon:

The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as the COP26 summit, was held in Glasgow earlier this month and brought together heads of state, government leaders and important industry figures from nearly 200 nations. The main objectives of the conference were to restrict the level of global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

The global finance industry has always been seen as an important factor in the drive to achieve climate change targets, and indeed the COP26 meeting included a dedicated ‘finance day’ where key players from governments, central banks and business discussed how the industry could rise to meet the ambitious challenges of the conference

Investment strategies where values are taken into account, often known as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing, have been available for many years, but they are now very well established as a strong market trend, with consumers around the world placing ever-larger amounts into ESG products. A recent FCA survey indicated that 80% of respondents wanted their investment portfolios to “do some good” as well as providing them with a financial return, and 71% wanted to invest in a way that “is protecting the environment”.

For their part, the UK authorities such as HM Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have been working on a number of initiatives. On the COP26 finance day, the FCA published its strategy on ESG, indicating its desired outcomes and the actions needed to achieve them.

The strategy codifies a number of items that the regulator has previously announced, with themes of transparency, trust, tools, transition, and team. The overarching objective is to support the financial sector to drive positive change, particularly in the transition to net zero emissions.

One potentially important piece of work is the discussion paper published by the FCA on 3 November – Sustainability Disclosure Requirements and Investment Labels. The European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) contains a variety of provisions, including an obligation for financial advisers to take into account the ESG/sustainability preferences of clients as part of the advice process. SFDR was not implemented into UK law prior to Brexit, but the FCA has now launched its own Sustainability Disclosure Requirements which will cover much of the same ground as SFDR would have done.

Although the discussion paper is centred around the investment management industry, financial advisers are also referenced as a critical part of the value chain. The FCA’s proposals for advisers are not fully fleshed out in its paper, but a clear steer is given, so advisers should pay keen attention to the regulator’s moves in this area:

“…we recognise the important role that financial advisers play in providing consumers with sufficient information to assess which products meet their needs. We are also exploring how best to introduce specific sustainability-related requirements for these firms and individuals. Building on existing rules, a key aim will be to confirm that they should take sustainability matters into account in their investment advice and understand investors’ preferences on sustainability to ensure their advice is suitable. We will develop proposals on this in due course, working with Government…”

One core problem associated with the area of ESG investing is that of labelling. The FCA has a concern that there is the potential for ‘greenwashing’, where sustainability claims made by investment management firms do not stand up to scrutiny. There is a litany of different labels which can be confusing for investors and advisers looking for suitable products. These products can be variously labelled as ethical, ESG, SRI, responsible, green, impact and so on. With labels being an important driver of consumer choice, the FCA is looking to enhance trust in this area and develop a set of objective classifications for products. Its proposal is to classify them into five high-level categories, as follows:

  • Not promoted as sustainable’ – Here, sustainability risks have not been integrated into the investment philosophy of the product and there are no specific sustainability objectives.
  • Responsible’ – The impact of sustainability factors on risk and return has been considered. There should be a level of ESG integration into the product’s management, with evidence of ESG capabilities and resources from the manager, and demonstrable investment stewardship.
  • Sustainable – Transitioning’ – Products with sustainability characteristics, themes or objectives which do not yet have a substantial proportion of underlying assets that meet the sustainability criteria set out in the UK Taxonomy, but the expectation is that this proportion will rise over time.
  • Sustainable – Aligned’ – Products with sustainability characteristics, themes or objectives which have a substantial proportion of underlying assets that meet the sustainability criteria set out in the UK Taxonomy.
  • Sustainable Impact’ – Products with explicit objectives to deliver net positive social and/or environmental impact as well as a financial return.

Alongside these labels, the FCA has indicated its intention for firms to provide the most pertinent sustainability-related information via consumer-facing disclosure, in order for investors to be armed with all the information required for them to make a considered choice with their capital.

The FCA’s proposals are at a very early stage, but the direction of travel is fairly clear. ESG investment is growing at a rapid pace, driven by strong consumer demand and a significant push from regulators and governments around the world. In many ways, the industry remains somewhat fragmented and its labelling can be confusing for customers. With increasing choice from asset managers, and more advisers incorporating ESG products into their advice process to meet their clients’ preferences, the regulator’s moves to build trust make the industry clearer and more harmonised will be welcomed in many quarters.

Our Comment

When we first started to write about ESG around 18 months ago, we commented that we expected the regulator to react to the growing ESG trends in the investment world.

As you can see here, we were not wrong, it seems like this is the start of their push towards giving us guidelines around ESG investing.

It’s not a bad thing though. Greenwashing is a major issue in the industry. The more investors read and hear about ESG investments, the more they discuss it with their advisers and the more likely they are to want to invest in this way.

This unfortunately means that some non ESG approved investments won’t want to lose out on the investors money and will greenwash their way into getting people to invest with them.

The proposed new disclosure requirements will help to prevent this in the industry by making the labelling of investments more clear and transparent.

Keep checking back for more ESG related content and our usual market commentary from some of the world’s leading fund management houses.

Andrew Lloyd DipPFS

29/11/2021