The UK operation of CFA Institute has unveiled what it calls the first qualification of its kind in the country.
CFA UK’s Certificate in ESG Investing will be available to investment professionals from December.
The Certificate has been introduced to meet the increased demand for environment, social and governance knowledge and skills in the investment sector.
In the UK, over 500 candidates are already signed up to complete the course; they will be able to take the exam from 2 December 2019.
Pilot
The launch follows a pilot programme conducted in September 2019, which was designed to ensure that the training materials developed for the qualification were “robust”.
More than 160 students from 60 firms took part in the pilot, which achieved a “very good” pass rate.
Participants in the pilot programme represented a wide spectrum of the profession, including asset owners, asset managers, consultants and pension providers.
Many were senior professionals, with 32% having earned the CFA designation, and 34% holding the Investment Management Certificate (IMC).
Version two of the qualification is currently being developed and though, at syllabus level, changes are expected to be minor, coverage in the underpinning learning materials is likely to be expanded in the areas of climate change and coverage of asset classes.
CFA UK also hopes to launch the qualification in additional markets.
Representatives from nine other CFA Societies – Switzerland, Finland, Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Ireland, France, Spain and Denmark – participated in the pilot and CFA UK plans to offer the qualification in these countries from January 2020.
Expand skills
Will Goodhart, chief executive of CFA UK, said: “CFA UK’s new Certificate in ESG Investing was designed to augment practitioners’ technical and ethical competency, enabling them to serve their clients to the best of their ability.
“For investment professionals, being able to demonstrate their proven ESG capability is likely to become increasingly important.
“CFA UK’s new qualification will allow those professionals looking to expand their portfolio of skills to integrate ESG factors into their day-to-day roles.”
Christina Curtin, director of education at CFA UK, said: “Improving understanding of ESG, which is increasingly important to investors, is now vital to the success of the profession, and we are pleased that firms and individuals are reacting so well.”
Fund launch
Elsewhere, Scotland-based IFA firm Cornerstone Asset Management has unveiled an ESG-driven Responsible Futures portfolio range.
It is aimed at ethically-minded investors looking to align with an “innovative investment proposition” that addresses the issue of sustainability and directly supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The Responsible Futures portfolio has been developed in partnership with Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management.
It will consider the future challenges that the world, society, business and governments face while offering investors additional opportunities for long-term growth potential.
Features
There are three main strands of ESG across the portfolio range:
- Ethical investing excludes certain companies, for example tobacco companies or weapons manufacturers from an investment fund or portfolio on moral grounds;
- ESG investment selections based on the Environmental and Social impact of a company and the quality of its governance. It’s less restrictive than ethical investing as it recognises that a company might get certain things right, while not being perfect in all areas; and
- Impact investing actively selects companies whose products and services create a positive impact rather than just avoiding a negative one. It also measures the impact of the investment.
Jen Paice, managing director of Cornerstone Asset Management, said: “It is important that we broaden our investment offering to capture the changing attitudes of both the young and old with an investment opportunity for ethically-minded investors.
“There’s a greater spotlight on sustainability issues and a groundswell for change. As such, we are bringing more choice for our existing and potential investors to invest in a responsible investment portfolio without compromising investment growth potential.”
