What good looks like? And when? How do you get there? Are you, as an organisation, genuinely ready to become sustainable? While starting at the top of the organisation i.e., in the Boardroom, this process needs to be inclusive of all stakeholders as they will be key proponents in your future model: What is your collective ESG vision, and do you have commitment from all parties to deliver on that vision? If not, what are the blocking points and how do you want to address them? Once you get that collective vision, you must embed it in the governance model of your organisation, not as an annex to agenda meetings, instead incorporated and examined at the same level as all other key corporate performance indicators. An organisation committed to sustainability will examine each of these issues, for example: “Gender Pay Gap” touches on the issue of equality of treatment regardless of gender “diversity” touches on the issue of equal opportunities regardless of race, origin, sexual orientation, gender, cognitive ability etc “investor outcome” touches on the commitment to offer investment products that place the investor at the centre of the design process “transparency” touches on the commitment to offer the highest level of transparency in fees and risks programmes “stakeholder management” touches on the inclusion of all stakeholders in the corporate mechanisms “governance models” capture all the issues listed here at decision making level etc.Įxamine your level of conviction: Start at the top, and engage your stakeholdersįrom there, examine the level of internal conviction to embrace an organisational ESG model. This is where the issues we listed earlier on come into play. Business Roundtable, whereby sustainable firms should “benefit all stakeholders i.e., customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders.” George Harding-Rolls adds that a sustainable business model must be part of a sustainable economy, defined as a thriving and competitive one, “that is delivering social progress within environmental limits.” Interestingly, the later definition, provided by Lia Colabello, is aligned with that of the U.S.
On that point, a distinction can be made between “sustainable business model” – defined as a business model that turns a profit while aiming to stay afloat for a long term – and a “business model that prioritises sustainability” – defined as one that considers all together all stakeholders, environmental impacts and transparency throughout. Some milestones are offered hereafter.Ī starting point is to examine what makes a business sustainable, not only in relation to the products they bring to market, but as an organisation as a whole. With that in mind, how do you go about resolving this dissonance and closing the gaps? We don’t believe that there is a magic formula to fix this issue, instead we believe that each organisation can undertake a journey towards a more ESG compliant business model. In the long run, it will call into question the authenticity of the ESG seal that we as an industry are genuinely working hard to stamp on our products, which may harm the industry as a whole. This gap needs bridging because it calls into question the real conviction and commitment of the industry. While the products coming to the market are increasingly and enthusiastically embracing the ESG models, the producers – as business organisations – are falling short from the generally accepted definition of a sustainable model themselves. This is what we call sustainability dissonance. These and other issues continue to make headlines in the industry press, and despite some visible and tangible progress made in a number of areas, significant gaps remain to be bridged. Gender Pay Gap diversity focus on investor outcome transparency on fees and risks governance models stakeholder management are just a few. The reason being is there are a number of ESG issues not relating to product development, but rather to the Wealth and Asset Management organisations themselves, which still need to be addressed. Now that this ESG product box is ticked, it is tempting to celebrate doing the right thing from a sustainability viewpoint but it is too soon to give ourselves a collective pat on the back. They will dominate the agenda of product strategy discussions for the foreseeable future. Looking at the pipeline of products to be launched in the Wealth and Asset Management space in the months to come, it is clear that Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) and impact investment are themes that have been fully adopted by the industry.