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The research part is a good part of behavioural wording: In our research with customers and some of your clients, many tell us that growth and managing financial risk are their priorities when it comes to their pension investments. But they also want to avoid harm if they can and to help influence positive change.
As you know, responsible investing means looking at environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors when deciding where to invest money. At Standard Life, we assess how a company is managing ESG risks and opportunities and how that could affect its financial performance over the long term.
Risks
Might include investment in companies involved in an activity like tobacco production.
Opportunities
Might include investment in companies that develop green technology.
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How you can compare some types of responsible investments for your clients
Investment managers can have different views on what makes a fund responsible or sustainable.
The four labels below can help you compare investments, along with reviewing any sustainability disclosures provided by the investment manager, to help inform you in better conversations with your clients.
Sustainability Improvers
Sustainability Mixed Goals
Investment managers using terms like sustainable, sustainability or impact to describe their fund, will have to demonstrate strong sustainability standards, apply for a label and display it on documents about the fund.
If an investment has a label, you can be confident that it has been measured against certain evidence required to meet its label.
To understand more about what we mean in Standard Life when we talk about responsible investment, you can check our jargon buster.
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Labels and sustainability disclosures only apply to certain types of investments
They do apply to many funds managed by external investment managers based in the UK.
But they don’t apply to our internal unit-linked funds, lifestyle profiles or funds based outside the UK although we do invest responsibly.
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Investments with a label will have to share extra information
Managers of labelled investments have to share sustainability disclosures with you about the fund’s sustainability aims and measures.
Some investment managers may publish a sustainability disclosure, even though they don’t apply for a sustainability label.
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As part of Phoenix Group, we’re on a journey to becoming net zero by 2050. Find out how we’ll continue to support a better financial future for our customers, while considering our investment in carbon-emitting sectors, in our Net Zero Transition Plan. Standard Life is part of Phoenix Group and the data shown is for the combined Phoenix Group.