Regulation has been brought to bear on how sustainable investment funds are labelled and promoted in the UK and Europe.
In the US, at least 15 states have gone as far as to start enacting anti-environmental, social and governance laws, reflecting a widespread backlash against sustainable investing.
Amid a political push to promote companies and investments that support international pledges to keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C - as per the Paris Agreement - how are ordinary investors and their advisers supposed to make sense of the shifting sands of sustainable investing?
And how have your and your clients' attitudes to sustainability changed over the past 12 months?
FT Adviser, together with Pacific Asset Management, is canvassing your opinion, once again, through our bespoke EnlightenESG tool. This can be found at the top right of our ESG Investing page.
This aims to see how your views may have changed over time. The data is all anonymised, except for denoting a gender split, and we would be grateful to hear from you.
Simon Lowans, chief marketing officer for Pacific Asset Management, said: "EnlightenESG is designed as a tool to reflect ESG sentiment, as well as highlight how individuals have changed their ESG preferences over time.
"We hope, in a small way, this free tool helps people to identify their own ESG preferences and contextualise adviser conversations.”
Our call for your input comes as the Financial Conduct Authority hailed significant progress in terms of approving labels under its new SDR regime.
At a UKSIF conference earlier this week (October 2), Alicia Kedzierski, head of sustainable finance at the FCA, told delegates that 10 labels had already been approved.
The regulator could not confirm as yet how many labels it expects to authorise before the final deadline, which is now April 2025.
However, Kedzierski said there had been a positive start: "We introduced SDR and the labelling regime, really to help consumers. And it is about reducing greenwashing, better information in the market and building trust.
"The pipeline is where we expected it to be. I say healthy. It is a lot of firms wanting and trying to think about using these labels."
Lowans added: “We firmly believe that sustainability has never been more important to the advice and asset management community, particularly as a result of recent regulatory efforts such as the SDR."
