Economy

Demand for sustainable, responsible and ethical financial advice rises to 76%

Published

11 years ago

January 21, 2014

Simon Leadbetter

There has been a marginal rise from 73% to 76% of advisers receiving requests for sustainable, responsible and ethical advice, according to encouraging figures in Blue & Green Tomorrow’s fourth annual survey of the advice market.

Each year, B&GT surveys the universe of financial advisers to explore the state of the overall market and sustainable, responsible and ethical advice specifically. The steady growth of interest in this type of advice, and that three-quarters of advisers receive such requests, suggests that demand is strong.

Industries that remain unpopular with investors are the arms trade, tobacco, companies involved in humans rights abuses and pornography. Popular sustainable sectors are renewables, fair trade and clean technology.

Following the strong performance of funds in 2013, overtaking their unethical peers, the rising demand is to be expected but a positive sign for this rapidly growing niche.

Simon Leadbetter is the founder and publisher of Blue & Green Tomorrow. He has held senior roles at Northcliffe, The Daily Telegraph, Santander, Barclaycard, AXA, Prudential and Fidelity. In 2004, he founded a marketing agency that worked amongst others with The Guardian, Vodafone, E.On and Liverpool Victoria. He sold this agency in 2006 and as Chief Marketing Officer for two VC-backed start-ups launched the online platform Cleantech Intelligence (which underpinned the The Guardian’s Cleantech 100) and StrategyEye Cleantech. Most recently, he was Marketing Director of Emap, the UK’s largest B2B publisher, and the founder of Blue & Green Communications Limited.