Foster Denovo launches passive ESG range

Foster Denovo has recently launched a passive ESG (environmental, social and governance) range for investors to add to its existing Active Sustainable Dynamic Portfolios (SDPs).

Declan McAndrew, our Head of Investment Research, explains to TrustNet why we have expanded our Sustainable Dynamic Portfolios offering with a new range of passive portfolios.

The Passive Sustainable Dynamic Portfolios range is designed to provide clients with “an option to do more with their savings and investments than purely generate competitive financial returns”.
The new range will cater for a variety of client circumstances, such as attitude to risk, investment time frame and investment goals. The portfolios will be invested in physically backed ETFs that exclude companies without clear ESG practices.

Declan McAndrew said when the range was first being developed, he had a “good healthy scepticism” regarding how passives could be used in sustainable investing and “some of the ‘compromises’ [that] you have to bear in mind in terms of a passive vehicle” and an index-tracking approach.

But in the current environment, with the growing popularity of passive strategies and ESG-sustainable investing there is a demand that needs to be met, he added.

“We’ve seen that there’s cost pressures on fund management, as there is on the financial advisory charge,” he said. “So, to not acknowledge the growth in passive and the valid reasons that clients and advisers choose passives [and] to not actually then try and focus on the progress in that field, I think would be kind of sticky.

Click here to read the full article on Trustnet.