The Personal Finance Society (PFS) and Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) have launched an environmental, social and governance (ESG) short course for financial advisers.
The ‘Spotlight: ESG and Sustainable Investment Advice’ course will help finance professionals to incorporate sustainable investment advice.
Additionally, the course also supports advisers in their implementation of the Consumer Duty “by helping to cater to the sustainable and ethical preferences of clients and therefore achieving good outcomes.”
The course has been introduced in response to greater scrutiny from regulators and increased interest from clients about sustainable investments.
The PFS said the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) anti-greenwashing regulation has fed into demand for personal finance professionals who understand the fundamentals of sustainable investments.
In July 2023, the FCA pushed back the publication of the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) consultation policy statement from Q3 2023 to Q4.
The SDR has an aim of clamping down on greenwashing.
The city watchdog said it had received a “range of comments” on the consultation.
In June, Square Mile strategic relationships director James Glover said the FCA had seen the biggest-ever response to a consultation.
This was not the first time the SDR consultation publication has been pushed back. The SDR was originally set to be published during Q2 but was pushed back to Q3 due to the number of responses the FCA received from the market.
The FCA’s consultation on the SDR closed for submissions at the end of January 2023.
Measures range from the introduction of sustainable investment labels to the imposition of disclosure requirements and restrictions on the use of sustainability-related terms in product names and marketing.
Initially, the FCA’s proposals are aimed at asset managers and their UK-based funds and portfolio management services. However, over time the regulator may wish to “expand and evolve” the regime to other sectors.
The FCA also discussed the addition of three labels to investment products: ‘sustainable focus’, ‘sustainable improvers’ and ‘sustainable impact’.
The PFS/CII ESG course was written by sustainable finance experts Rebecca Kowalski and Alan Whittle. Both of which have worked across advice, compliance, supervision and paraplanning.
The course covers such areas as understanding the nature and complexity of sustainable finance, recognising how the global transition to a sustainable economy impacts risk, costs, opportunity, and reward.
As well as understanding the importance of engaging with sustainability in the current consumer market and identifying sustainable and ethical products and understanding their uses.
PFS interim chief executive Don MacIntyre said: “We are very pleased to announce the launch of the new Spotlight: ESG and Sustainable Investment Advice course. This is a brilliant opportunity for finance professionals to build their skills and knowledge and gain valuable understanding of this important topic in order to best meet their clients’ needs.”
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