What does best-in-class, 3rd party-certified ESG investing look like?

What does best-in-class, 3rd party-certified ESG investing look like? What is the gold standard? I recently spoke to True Potential who could only point me towards their signature of the UNPRI, which is self-policed from what I can tell. Who is holding these investment firms to account? It seems that they alone define what ESG means to them, and then won't share this methodology when challenged. I use TP as an example but I can't find anyone doing it better, i.e. with more transparency. Who is leading the way?

It's very hard, is the short answer. Lots of firms are marking their own homework but it’s difficult to get under the bonnet. Global research house Morningstar is good on this – they have sustainability ratings which give you a flavour of who is doing well across all funds in the UK. And some ‘robo advisers’ like Nutmeg have quite good information on their portfolios. Or you could pick a firm which has sustainable investing at its core – Eden Tree is one such example.

The regulator is introducing new labels here which I think will help, although the investment managers are finding it hard to meet the 4 ‘boxes’ they have to fit into. Expect to hear more on this. By the end of this year, we may have up to 400 funds in the UK with one of these labels, so you will start to see more of them which will start to provide more help. No firm will be able to use the word "sustainable" in a fund’s name if it doesn’t meet clearly defined criteria. So I think things are improving but it will take time.