Presenting Our Sustainable Disclosure Prototype

In interviews, investors told us they find an overarching objective useful, as it gives an indication of the fund’s direction, priorities and holds the manager accountable.​

• Investors also indicated that reading a fund manager’s bio or ‘putting a face’ to a fund helps make the process more personable.​

• Based on feedback of desire for more interactivity, the audio clips were included, and investors liked the more personable approach.​

• They felt it gave insight to the manager and brand in a short, digestible snippet.​

“And I'd say the fund's overarching, sustainable objective, that's very important. So I'll probably put that at the top. Just because that's a statement, and that will determine the behaviour or approach towards sustainability.” Investor

Despite mixed levels of awareness, these were felt to be a useful, independent and consistent way of framing the disclosures

• Qualitatively, the majority of investors had heard of SDGs, though they did not have a detailed knowledge.​

• However, if aligned to funds they want detailed explanation to better understand how a fund manager justifies this.

• In our research we asked investors which SDGs were most important to them, and how they would group them into 3 more manageable sub-categories, as 17 were felt to be too many in this summary mobile-first prototype.

• Investors identified Climate & Planet; Social Equality and Economic Sustainability.

“I think they are a great framework to get behind. But there needs to be evidence. Say, ‘our framework is the SDGs. These are the metrics we're using to demonstrate progress against the SDGs and this is how those metrics were created, exactly what goes into measuring them, how often they're updated’.” Investor

Investors want to understand sustainable metrics quickly and easily, and want simple explanations.​

• When tested, metrics with benchmarks (e.g. water usage and carbon intensity) were easily understood, and investors felt they could quickly grasp if a fund was doing well in these areas, and expressed the importance of the information button. 

• A consistent colour to represent the benchmark made it easier to follow​.

• There is a notable lack of robust metrics for some areas of investor interest, particularly in the Social Equality group, such as broader diversity other than gender.

“I definitely think carbon intensity is a key one. And I like the simple coloured bar graphs. You don't have to make stuff look ugly to be informative.” Investor

We know a barrier to investing sustainably is a lack of transparency about all underlying holdings, and why some are included.

• The example holdings was a later addition in response to investor feedback. The investors who were shown the section liked the transparency and justification of certain holdings within the fund. ​

• One example being BP - this helped investors imagine a situation in which a fund manager explains/justifies an arguably controversial holding. 

• Almost every consumer interviewed expressed a desire to see a full list of holdings, not just the top 10.

“One that struck me was why Microsoft would be seen as the sustainable? That as the top investment in a sustainable fund, and not something that particularly strikes me as being sustainable, but maybe they're doing something that I’m not aware of.” Investor