Responsible investment: How to deliver the right customer outcomes

Recent research states that over 75% of investors are interested in investing responsibly. But there remains a number of misconceptions about how best to build a robust ESG and responsible investing infrastructure that provides the flexibility to meet the needs and preferences of investors. Portfolio manager, Bethan Dixon, will talk through the challenges of responsible investing and provide practical solutions to help you navigate these issues.

By the end of this session, delegates will be able to:

• Explain how to identify your clients’ preferences for responsible and sustainable investments
• Explain how to overcome the challenges of integrating responsible investment into a multi-asset solution
• Identify how WealthSelect’s new range of portfolios provide a solution that can be easily mapped to your clients’ objectives
  

ESG investors should demand long term risk and return outcomes in-line with traditional portfolios.

ESG portfolios have endured a period of underperformance as rising inflation has ravaged the more highly valued investments within them. We will explore how to move beyond the ESG-spin and focus on the hard rules of evidence-based investing to assemble portfolios that can compete with their unconstrained peers over the economic cycle.

By the end of this session, delegates will be able to:

• Explain the importance of inflation and yields to portfolio outcomes
• Outline how to improve client outcomes through enhanced diversification
• Explain how to navigate greenwashing and style biases when selecting funds
  

Pictet-Positive Change, an equity strategy with a difference

Pictet-Positive Change is an equity fund for investors seeking to benefit from companies transitioning to the sustainable future economy. The fund aims to identify companies with strong alignment of their products & services with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), those improving their alignment, and those with the potential to improve their SDG-alignment encouraged by targeted engagement by the investment team. The aim is to create a concentrated portfolio of financially robust companies that are aligning with global efforts to achieve sustainability goals and that will outperform the broader market.

By the end of this session, delegates will be able to:

• Explain how we need to continue to invest in old economy sectors, but responsibly. They are a vital part of the global economy and often the place where we most need to see change
• Explain how engagement works: objectives have to be realistic, desirable, and beneficial to the company
• Measure impact
  
  

ESG Investing – from conversation to investment

With new guidance on the way from the regulator, how should you consider adapting your existing advice process to incorporate your client’s preferences around the sustainability of their investments? What questions should you ask? What language could you use? What examples are likely to resonate with clients? And then, of course there is the risk of greenwashing. This session will focus upon practical answers to questions posed, and share best practice, based upon our conversations with advisers and other like-minded professionals about how to link that conversation to a suitable ESG investment.

• Explain the concept of ESG investing and how it sits within the range of investment options
• Describe how ESG can potentially impact investment decisions
• Consider how to include ESG considerations in your client conversations and advice process