National Ethical Investment Week 2013 est arrive…

5 Top SRI Tips for Advisers

‘Beaujolais’ it may not be – but ‘nouveau’ this approach really is!

With NEIW13 upon us (13 – 19 October)  there’s no time like the present to think about how to develop your own ethical investment & SRI strategy.

Here are ‘5 top SRI tips’ for financial advisers

1. Ask an ‘Ethical Fact Find Question’ as part of your standard fact find questionnaire.

You cannot second guess who will or won’t be interested, so ask everyone. Try something like:

‘Are there any ethical, social, environmental or religious issues you would like to take into considerations when looking at where to invest?’

2. Find out what’s on offer.

There are many different types of sustainable & responsible, green and ethical investment. Identifying and understanding them all takes time. Styles include negative and perhaps more ‘balanced’ ethical options, sustainability and environmental themes options, shareholder activist funds and numerous specialist options.

• To learn more about how to segment this market visit the ‘SRI Styles directory’ which explains the segments we apply to the 400+ regulated SRI options.

 3. Understand your clients SRI and ethical aims

When a client is interested in this area you need to ask additional questions in order to understand their aims and opinions.

You can either discuss a list of individual ethical issues with them – or you can shortcut this by talking about SRI styles or segments. Different approaches suit different clients, but if you are in the ‘styles’ camp you have two options:

•  go to the adviser only Panacea SRI Database tool  or  our own Fund EcoMarket tool  and go through the online tick box ‘questionnaire’ with your client in order to find out which SRI/Ethical Styles best suit their views.
•  direct your client to the same questionnaire on the ‘SRI StyleFinder’ client microsite  so they can tell you what their aims are!

 4. Integrate ethical & other advice factors early to save time

Researching relevant ethical options as a ‘stand alone’ task can be time consuming.

The Fund EcoMarket database tool will do this for you.  From start to finish it will take you about two minutes to generate a list of relevant SRI/ethical options – providing you know which SRI style/s, asset types and product areas your client is interested in.

• And remember – few clients are ‘100% ethical’.   Many ‘mix and match’ SRI Styles or prefer to only invest some of their money ethically. (Yes… you can be ‘a bit ethical’… aren’t you?)

5. Know where to go for help.

The sriServices site is the only independent, adviser only, generic SRI support and training site.

We are passionate about this area and work with a wide range of organisations to help develop SRI options… but all our basic adviser training material is available online and free for advisers to use.

• Check out the ‘About SRI’ area of our site for generic SRI information
• Check out the ‘Advising on SRI’ area of the site to help with your advice processes.
• You may also like to visit the NEIW13 adviser  resources area for additional suggestions.

Happy NEIW13!!!

Julia Dreblow

Who!?! 

NEIW13 est arrive – printable version