This article features as part of IFA Magazine’s celebration of World Earth Day
Investment consulting firm commits to key initiative led by the Impact Investing Institute
Independent investment consultancy bfinance has announced that it has become an official adopter of the Impact Investing Principles for Pensions from the Impact Investing Institute.
In doing so, the firm commits to supporting pension fund clients in setting impactful objectives and implementing investment strategies in relation to those objectives and evaluating investment managers’ impact capabilities.
bfinance’s adoption of the Impact Investing Principles follows the appointment of Sarita Gosrani as ESG Director. The Impact Investing Principles state that:
We endorse the Impact Investing Principles for Pensions and will:
- routinely include impact investing as a key topic for consideration with both new and existing pension fund clients;
- support pension clients in reviewing the environmental, social and governance impacts across their investment portfolio and provide recommendations;
- support pension fund clients to set impactful objectives and interim targets, implement their strategy, and manage and monitor their investments in relation to their impact objectives by providing effective tools; and
- support pension fund clients to make changes to their objectives, investments and third-party advisers and investment managers based on their management, monitoring and review of progress.
bfinance’s commitment to the Impact Investing Principles comes after its recent launch of the Net Zero Investment Consultants Initiative (NZICI). The NZICI details nine specific action points with the goal of global net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner, and was launched alongside 11 other investment consulting firms.
The endorsement of the Impact Investment Principles is also part of bfinance’s dedicated efforts to assist clients in their journey to net zero.
Sarita Gosrani, Director of ESG and Responsible Investment at bfinance said: “ESG integration is fast becoming a norm, and investors are increasingly wanting to invest with impact. Navigating entry to the rapidly evolving impact product universes across a diverse range of asset classes is not always straight-forward, and asset owners wanting to allocate to impact funds face some distinct challenges, from education on what impact they can have to weeding out the impact washing that is still highly prevalent. At bfinance we are committed to supporting clients in this extremely important space and expect investor demand to continue to grow in the coming years.”