Investors should “challenge their financial advisers to ensure their money is invested as they expect”.
This is what Greenbank, the ethical and sustainable specialists within Rathbones Group, has urged in a new guide to help retail investors navigate the UK’s Sustainability Disclosure Requirement (SDR) labels.
The guide ‘A Consumer Guide to Sustainable Investment Funds’ is published in partnership with UK Sustainable and Investment Finance Association (UKSIF).
The SDR framework, which changed the rules around how investment funds can be described and marketed.
They aim to address investor concerns over greenwashing and restore trust and improve transparency in the sustainable investment space.
The guide urges investors to ask questions around where their money is invested. “If something doesn’t add up, like a fund holding a company that seems to contradict its sustainability label, then ask for more information,” the guide said.
It also reassures consumers that they “do not need to be an expert to start thinking about sustainable investment” and advises investors to dig deeper into a fund’s sustainability objective to understand if it reflects their own priorities.
It also highlighted that the absence of a label does not mean a fund is not sustainable, rather, it underscores the importance of understanding each product’s sustainability objective and how it is measured.
Rathbones Asset Management head of sustainability David Harrison said: “The new SDR labels are there to make sustainability clearer, but they’re not the whole story. We want investors to know it’s okay, in fact, essential, to ask questions about what a fund is really doing with their money.
“Working with UKSIF, we want to make sure every investor feels confident to challenge claims, explore the detail and choose investments that reflect their values.”
In July 2025, Rathbones Asset Management achieved SDR labels across its four-fund sustainable multi-asset range, bringing its total labelled funds to six.
