Six months on from the launch of the EnlightenESG profiler on FT Adviser, the latest iteration of the survey is now live.
Created by a team at Pacific Asset Management, the interactive ESG profiling tool, EnlightenESG, provides insights into where you, your firm and even your clients might sit on the sustainability spectrum.
The profiler, which can be found on our https://www.ftadviser.com/esg-investing/ page, allows you to take a short series of questions, without needing to enter your personal details other than an age band and gender identification.
This helps create insights that can be used to see where you sit alongside others with similar profiles - and to see whether your own views have changed over the past six months.
According to Will Thompson, portfolio manager for PAM's sustainable multi-asset solutions, because regulation has been changing so rapidly, sustainability has become "an important consideration for advice".
He said: "The move to include MPS solutions under the SDR product labelling framework should help consumers to identify the approach taken by their MPS solution.
"Equally it means that advisers need to have a process in place to fully understand the sustainability profile of their clients."
Tech behind the tool
As previously reported, EnlightenESG was developed and launched by Pacific Asset Management in 2021, aiming to help financial advisers better understand a client’s appetite for sustainable investing and the areas about which they are most concerned.
The technology behind the tool is designed to learn constantly from the collective inputs and adapts as the world and people’s views change.
Since its 2021 launch, thousands of individuals have engaged with the profiler, resulting in a wealth of valuable data.
Thompson added: "The data that EnlightenESG can provide is helpful in this regard, while not designed to encompass fully the SDR regime, it can help richen the conversation around sustainability for advisers and clients.”
Output will include data analysis, such as the FT Adviser Sustainability Sentiment Index and whether readers view the E, S or G factor as being most important to their sustainability profile.
This sort of information will become more important as the Financial Conduct Authority's sustainability disclosure requirements come into effect and push sustainability matters to the forefront of advice and investment conversations.
How it works
The EnlightenESG profiler has three sections:
- A section on the participant’s general lifestyle. For example, do they recycle or look to offset their carbon when traveling?
- A section on participants’ philosophical views to determine which issues – if any – matter most to them.
- The 'what if?' questions. These aim to establish how happy a participant would be to sacrifice financial returns to have more sustainable investments for example.
The results are normalised against peers to try and give as accurate a representation of a participant’s appetite for ESG investments as possible.
Participants are given five outcomes, ranging from citizen (not very interested in ESG) to impact (extremely interested).
Take the profiler yourself!
Click on the link here to take part, see where you rank alongside your peers in the advice profession and look out for results and analysis in the near future.
Personally my ratings moved from 'engaged' to 'impact' after a few small tweaks to my home and travel life!
Let us know how you got on by emailing simoney.kyriakou@ft.com
