Aviva and FNZ announce joint ambitions in sustainable investing

• Aviva announces enhancements to ESG Profiling Tool

• Client report now available to support ESG discussions and decision-making

• Profiling against nine ESG Preferences now available

• ESG Profiler underpinning Aviva and FNZ joint ambitions in sustainable investing

Aviva and FNZ have today announced further enhancements to their ESG Profiling tool on the Aviva Advised platform. ESG Profiler, powered by FNZ Impact, an ESG solution integrated into FNZ’s wider global wealth management platform, will now offer a downloadable customer report, enabling advisers to include ESG factors in client conversations. An additional ESG-focused preference – Air Pollution – has also been added. 

This takes the number of ESG preferences available to nine, following the launch of the tool in October last year. The tool provides a market-leading proposition that profiles a client’s investments against independent ESG metrics, enabling advisers to have informed conversations with their clients about how their investments rate against the ESG aspects most important to them, with the ability to suggest alternatives which more closely align with their clients’ investing objectives.

Advisers are now able to review a client’s portfolio against Climate Change, Women in Leadership, Water Security, Waste, Deforestation, Human Rights, Recycling, Corporate Governance and Air Pollution. In addition, there are exclusionary filters for Adult entertainment, Alcohol, Controversial weapons, Gambling, Tobacco and Fossil fuels, to ensure that investments in these areas are avoided according to client wishes. 

One key piece of feedback received from advisers using the Profiling tool was that it would benefit from being able to generate a client report, for advisers to share with their clients. The new client ESG Profiler report, launched today will enable advisers to produce a report focused on their clients’ ESG preferences; for instance, total carbon footprint within their product. They will also know the impact of the other ESG preferences that matter to them. 

Al Ward, Aviva Head of Platform, said; “We are delighted to continue our delivery of the enhancements to the ESG Profiler tool, based on feedback we’ve been getting from advisers. In particular, as well as the addition of the further preference, we believe that the client report will add considerable value to the conversations advisers are able to have with their clients." 

“Our recent research with lang cat showed that although over a third of advisers say that adding value to their relationships with their clients is the biggest motivating factor in having ESG discussions, 48% of advisers do not conduct these retrospective reviews. Using the ESG Profiler tool with this output is a good way to enable those conversations, and add value to existing, as well as new, relationships.”

In March 2021, Aviva launched its Sustainability Ambition, focused on three core areas –

• acting on climate change

• building stronger, more resilient communities 

• embedding sustainability in our business

At the same time, Aviva announced it was targeting Net Zero carbon by 2040, the first major UK financial services company to do so. This ambition targets Net Zero carbon emissions produced themselves by Aviva and its suppliers by 2030 and from customers’ and shareholders’ investments and underwriting by 2040.

The delivery of the ESG Profiler on Aviva’s Adviser Platform, was a significant milestone for Aviva, FNZ and the market as a whole.  It enabled the delivery of a “first to market” tool which supports Aviva’s advisers in their conversations with clients on ESG, allowing them to show their customers the scale and quantifiable impact of their investments - in terms that they understand.  The delivery of FNZ Impact on the Aviva Advised platform also solidifies both Aviva’s and FNZ’s company-wide sustainability objectives. 

Vian Sharif, Head of Sustainability at FNZ, said: “With around half of the world’s capital coming through investments from median-income household savings, enabling people to understand the impact of their portfolios, and make changes in line with their ESG preferences, is critical to driving the changes in capital allocation that are needed to transition to net zero and build a more sustainable economy and society. 

“Providing people with the required information and ability to invest in the things they care about, on their own terms, is key to FNZ’s mission of opening up wealth. We are proud to be furthering this mission through our strong partnership with Aviva. The latest enhancements to Aviva’s ESG profiler powered by FNZ Impact will allow for more meaningful engagement with clients around their ESG preferences and better support advisers to adapt to growing investor interest in this space.”

Al Ward, Aviva Head of Platform, concluded; “We will continue to work with FNZ and invite feedback from advisers to further develop our ESG services.  We are already exploring a number of additional options, including tools to ascertain the ESG impact of changing a customer’s holdings, and adding ‘Impact over time’ to the tool so a user can understand not only the current view of a metric, but how that holding is trending."