NordSIP (Stockholm) – UBS has announced it will launch a pilot program aiming at personalising sustainable investment away from aggregate ESG categories and towards a more detailed view of the actual projects. This initiative seeks to increase private funding targeted at UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
The program will allow clients to express their preference in a personalised sustainability score, and compare their score against more than 20,000 ESG-rated stocks and bonds to find the best match, according to a press release.
UBS hopes that such a vehicle will achieve the US$ 2-7 trillion needed annually to address the issues highlighted by the UN’s SDGs. “At UBS, we believe that only by offering solutions that raise awareness and channel personal preferences for investing sustainably can the global community achieve the UN SDGs,” said Axel Weber, Chairman of UBS, at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.
As ESG investments grow and become more sophisticated, the aggregate categories become less informative to investors. According to UBS, sustainable investors are starting to demand more investment vehicles targed at specific ESG factors to isolate the problems that they want to see addressed. Not all sustainable investors are the same. An investor may want to prioritise water issues over waste, for example, according to UBS.
“UBS is taking steps to widen our lead in sustainable investing. Clients clearly care about the social and environmental impact of their investments, and they shouldn’t have to compromise in their pursuit of financial returns to achieve their objectives,” says Sergio P. Ermotti, Group CEO of UBS.
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