Financial advisors who direct curious clients to a new, educational website on responsible investing (RI) could find themselves having more engaged conversations with those clients.
When people learn about RI, they see how their investments relate to their everyday life. That exercise can make their investments a more meaningful and interesting topic of conversation, says Brenda Plant, partner with Ellio, a sustainability and responsible investment consultancy firm based in Montreal, and one of the website’s founders.
Launched in September, the website, www.ethiquette.ca, is bilingual and dedicated to RI. The website includes videos, testimonials, surveys and a weekly blog.
Ethiquette.ca allows you to help your clients answer questions they may have about RI without you actually having to become an authority on the subject.
“[Advisors] know they can’t be expected to be experts on sustainability,” says Plant. “They can’t be expected to be experts on all these different issues, and their clients are coming in with all these different [questions].”
Instead, you can peruse the website with your clients during meetings or refer your clients to the site so they can visit it on their own time.
The website was created by Plant and Fabien Durif, professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal’s School of Management and a director of the university’s Responsible Consumption Observatory (RCO).
The website is a response to a study that the RCO conducted, which found there is little awareness among retail investors regarding RI and that education regarding related products is largely inadequate.
Deb Abbey, CEO of the Toronto-based Responsible Investment Association, says ethiquette.ca is a useful tool for advisors looking to educate their clients on how to make their investment portfolios a little greener.
“It’s well-organized and easy to use,” says Abbey, “and certainly, I think, very helpful to advisors in their communication with clients.”
One of the advantages to this website, Abbey says, is that it ties RI to the products and services available in the Canadian marketplace – not the case for much of the information available online.
The website was created in partnership with Lévis, Que.-based Desjardins Wealth Management, Caisse d’économie solidaire Desjardins and Fonds FTQ (both based in Montreal), Fondaction CSN in Quebec City, Quebec’s Ministry of Sustainable Development – Environment and Climate Change Control, and Employment and Social Development Canada.
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