Introduction
Last year was ‘the year of ESG’ according to The Financial Times, with assets in the ‘environmental, social and governance’ (ESG) space reaching a record high of USD 960bn by the end of the year. This explosive growth is an ongoing process that steadily brings new challenges and opportunities. ESG investors have been focusing heavily on the environment (“E” issues), but Covid-19 is changing that. The pandemic is exposing social (“S”) issues like inequalities in healthcare, access to medicine and education, treatment of workers and other social problems that urgently need to be addressed. The recent social inequality demonstrations – which have primarily been driven by younger generations – have magnified awareness around this theme. Now is the time to act. There is a real desire among investors to put capital to work in this space. At the same time as consumer focus on sustainability is rising, the asset management industry is being driven to change by the EU’s roll-out of new financial regulations around ESG. As of the 2nd of August 2022, financial advisors will have to be able to offer MiFID-eligible ESG portfolios to clients with sustainability preferences. That means now more than ever financial advisors need the proper ESG knowledge and tools to meet client expectations.
The crucial questions now are: Are advisors ready to comply with new MiFID regulation, do they understand the needs of a new generation of clients, and can they offer relevant quality advice?
In order to answer these questions, we carried out an ESG Survey to understand the sustainability-related goals, and the expectations of financial advisors’ clients across 5 European markets: Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Switzerland*. In this 2021 edition we have aimed to grasp clients’ attitude towards ESG investing in several strategic domains: sustainability, knowledge and approach to ESG investing, ESG drivers, allocation trends and barriers; role of advice and how to increase ESG uptake. The Nordea ESG Survey 2021 gathered the views of 1,200 European individual investors on ESG and sustainable investing via an online survey conducted by CoreData Research between July and August 2021. Participants are classified into 4 different generations: Gen Z (age: 18-24), Millennials (25-40), Gen X (41-56), and Baby Boomers (57-75). They are also split into ESG users (currently investing in ESG, 43%) and ESG non-users (currently not investing in ESG, 57%).
All individual investors interviewed currently use a financial adviser.
*Please note Switzerland’s advisors are not subjected to MiFID II regulation.
4
2021 Nordea ESG Survey
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs