The Dialshifter badge will be made available to financial advisers who we believe are proactively helping clients to bring climate change and sustainability considerations into their investment plans.
Who?
Financial Advisers play a key role in enabling individual investors to direct money into funds and other investments that are able to help ‘shift the dial’ on climate change and other key sustainability issues.
Dialshifter is currently a ‘work in progress’ however we have recognised the importance of advisers for many years and in addition to running a fund tool to support this group we also have a ‘Find an Adviser’ page. That page lists financial advisers who have indicated that sustainable, responsible and ethical investment forms part of their fact find and advice processes.
Through the processes advisers have in place – and the recommendations they make – clients’ views on issues like sustainability and climate change are either brought into their investment planning, or ignored. Put another way, through the way advisers operate, they either help individuals to invest in ways that are consistent with their personal opinions (and related financial expectations) or they do not.
Our aim is to encourage and support advisers who take climate change and related challenges seriously.
Why?
Our draft qualification requirements aim to help differentiate between advisers that are and are not helping to address environmental challenges such as climate change.
Only advisers that we have responded appropriately to our information requests – indicating a clear commitment to help to ‘shift the dial’ – will be considered.
Adviser information will be checked as part of our verification process (see adviser form).
Please be aware we are not regulated (or regulators) and can not endorse or recommend any adviser, service or investment. The information we supply is ‘for information only’.
These requirements will be consulted on and improved from time to time – with the expectation of raising standards.
Dialshifter Requirements for Financial Advisers
- Sustainable, responsible and ethical investment options must be available to all clients
- ‘Dialshifting’ (ethical/ESG/SRI) advice service to be visible on the home page of the company / adviser website’
- Must provide evidence that environmental considerations form part of the adviser’s standard ‘know your client’ (fact find) processes.
- Must provide evidence that processes are in place to ensure clients’ views on environmental issues are explored and acted upon
- Must provide evidence of how client questions relating to climate change and other ESG / SRI issues are dealt with
- Must provide evidence that understanding environmental issues, particularly climate change, forms part of relevant team members’ ongoing continual professional development (CPD)
- Must provide a Dialshifter summary – explaining how they help to ‘shift the dial’
- To provide or be working on a ‘net zero’ / Paris Alignment statement outlining your support and need to achieve net zero.