Consilium integrates ESG profiler

Consilium and FNZ, the global wealth management platform, have launched the Consilium Wrap ESG Profiler, to help advisers personalise client portfolios according to their ESG preferences and values.

Thursday, April 18th 2024, 1:52PM

by Andrea Malcolm

The solution which uses FNZ Impact, an ESG solution integrated into FNZ’s wider platform, uses data from multiple ESG data providers to measure and review holdings against six preferences including human rights, climate change, corporate governance and waste to landfill. The solution also has exclusionary filters that prevent unwanted investments connected to fossil fuels, tobacco, gambling and more.

Consilium’s integration of FNZ Impact now provides advisers with one of the most comprehensive ESG profiling solutions available in the New Zealand market, and is the latest enhancement to Consilium Wrap, which gives advisers the flexibility to provide investors with bespoke offerings.

Dayle Engelbrecht, head of wrap solutions at Consilium, says when the firm began working with FNZ to develop Consilium Wrap, the goal was to future-proof the platform for scale and growth.

“Investors are thinking about the social good they can enable, and the harm they can help prevent. The ESG profiler is an important expansion that provides advisers with additional ways to personalise offerings to suit an investor's unique values and ESG goals.”

He says FNZ Impact profiles investments against independent metrics, enabling them to be rated and evaluated against investor preferences. The solution, in time, will also provide advisers with client reports that help facilitate conversations and review portfolio impacts like total carbon footprint.

FNZ New Zealand CEO Jeremy Graham, says the solution facilitates better communication between advisers and their clients, which enables advisers to make more informed recommendations and strengthen client relationships.

Christchurch-based adviser Hamish Kember says about 15% of his clients are interested in ESG investing. This has grown over the last few years and in general clients under 50 are more interested.

Next month he will start training on the tool and says it will be a case of learning over time how the tool will be able to provide information to support clients’ ethical priorities including water security, climate change, human rights, deforestation and waste.

Until now he has relied on fund labels and the tool will help combat greenwashing when comparing funds on their green credentials. He also expects it to give greater transparency of information so that clients can be more involved and armed with knowledge when making an investment selection and the trade-offs of any decision they make.

“Ultimately it will be only of interest to those who have an interest in ESG but that is still a small but growing number of wealthy people. It is a unique offering to help those clients get better information on where their money is invested. What we do with that information and how it will be implemented, time will tell.”

Tags: Consilium