ESG Research Update
/Study: Advisers can benefit if they get in quick on ESG
The ESG is Personal: 2022 Study of ESG Preferences and Advisory Practices in Australia study by Capital Preferences looked into the ESG investment landscape in Australia, finding advisers who acted quickly could benefit.
Key findings of the study include:
Advisers who offered investors a high-calibre ESG investing experience had higher rates of advocacy, loyalty and wallet share growth
The Net Promoter Score for those advisers offering ESG experiences is 67 per cent, compared with a -1.1 per cent for those who didn’t offer such services
Fifty-nine per cent of respondents regarded ESG factors as highly important in their investing, with just one out of 10 respondents believing they are receiving very good ESG investing experiences
Fourteen per cent of respondents felt that their current portfolios matched their values
A large portion of investors have highly individualised ESG preferences who want to act fast but do not feel they are being catered to, offering fast-acting advisers an opportunity
Two out of three investors are not knowledgeable on ESG concepts like impact investing or negative screening
Australian investors could benefit from more ESG education, while advisers need to upskill, with the result better ESG conversations - 20 per cent of investors clearly explain ESG concepts to their advisers, while 38 per cent feel their adviser is committed to helping them invest sustainably
The study examined over 300 Australian investors. Capital Preferences is a behavioural economics, decision science and financial tech firm.
Study: Corporations want sustainability, finding acting tricky
A Schneider Electric survey, Sustainability Index: transforming intention to outcomes, found that most Australian companies looked at climate change as a major risk to operations and in theory support our transition to net zero, but are struggling to put this into meaningful action.
Over 500 decision-makers were surveyed across corporate Australia.
Key findings include:
Seventy-six per cent of respondents believe that sustainable transformation offers a competitive edge (up 13 per cent on 2021 numbers)
Eighty-six per cent said nominated profitability benefits such as increased revenue, brand equity and efficiency were drivers towards adopting sustainability
Most businesses (75 per cent) thought the benefits outweighed the costs of adopting sustainable technology, an increase of seven per cent on last year
Pressure is increasing from customers and shareholders to reduce business climate change impact
Nearly 80 per cent of respondents agreed that digital is playing a key role in achieving sustainability goals, with nearly 60 per cent having increased their spending on digital technology across the past three years and 42 per cent on increasing automation
A majority of respondents had plans to invest in monitoring and reporting (79 per cent), energy and resource efficiency (75 per cent) and data automation (74 per cent) in the coming two years
Despite the push, 11 per cent have no intention of reducing their carbon footprint and 45 per cent will not do so until 2030 or later
Barriers to putting plans into action for net zero included a lack of expertise (28 per cent) or data (21 per cent), with most companies not having detailed data for the identification and measurement of their own emissions or those of their supply chain
Thirty-seven per cent said they are acting to reduce emissions, with 45 per cent in the process of developing business plans to address climate risk
Forty-six per cent said they were well underway with emissions quantifying (their own or supply chain)
In the companies committed to decarbonisation 14-30 per cent said they had limited understanding of their own emissions
About 30 per cent said their emissions were estimated on their energy spending and under five per cent said they had achieved material emissions reductions across the use of gas and fuel, though about 10 per cent said reductions in electricity use had been achieved
