New guide published by Intelligent Partnership Publishes focuses ESG lens on tax-advantaged investments

LONDON, 23 May 2022 - Intelligent Partnership, the UK's leading provider of education and insight on alternative investments, is proud to announce the publication of 'An Adviser's Guide to Environmental, Social and Governance: Tax-advantaged investments', focused on how the Enterprise Investment Scheme, Venture Capital Trust and Business Relief markets intersect with ESG concerns. The SME focus of these schemes, the perceived risk in ESG with greenwashing and the continued reticence of some financial advisers and planners to engage on ESG call for this guide's practical clarity.

A number of industry luminaries share their thought leadership, including Shoremount's John Featherby, who has been heavily involved in the evolution of B-Corps, Whitni Thomas, interim head of corporate finance at ethical bank, Triodos and Julia Dreblow, of SRI Services, who serves on the new FCA Disclosures and Labels Advisory Group.

Gillian Roche-Saunders partner at compliance firm, Adempi Associates brings straightforward decoding of the FCA's newest Sustainability Disclosure Requirements, confirming that, "Any fund and portfolio managers not caught by the rules will be strongly encouraged by the FCA to comply." She adds, "You may well see some providers immediately keen to produce the data if they feel strongly about ESG and Impact being a core part of their brand. We found this occurred with the equivalent European regime, Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation (SFDR)."

Neil Pearson of Mills & Reeve emphasises the growing relevance of ESG to the risk capital schemes, pointing out that, "a typical EIS/VCT investor is looking towards an exit in three to five years (although most acknowledge that three is very unlikely and even five years is probably optimistic.) There is an increasing amount of evidence showing that ESG creates sustainable longer-term value, and we're already seeing PE houses build ESG into their pricing models. So in three to five years, we might expect ESG strategy to play a key part in achieving a successful exit, as investors will pay more for a business with a strong and credible ESG strategy."

Key Findings

£1.4 trillion is required to get us to net zero but many of the ideas that get us there will start out very small, and need EIS and VCT in particular to bridge the funding gap.
Business Relief has become a reliable funding route for renewable energy.
ESG is not just the E - Richard Cook, Blackfinch CEO told us, "We have to ensure that the decisions taken to support climate action support a fully inclusive economy that avoids worsening existing injustices or creating new ones."
Financial advisers have a crucial role to play and the FCA has all-but labelled financial advisers not fully engaging on ESG as an obstacle to a better future.
If generation Z has been the voice of ESG, millennials are bringing individual wealth to the table.
Millennials form the largest and best educated generation ever and will be the beneficiaries of £327 billion from baby boomers in the UK in the next decade alone.

Why Now?

Climate change, Covid-19, political will and regulatory focus has cemented ESG's position as a high priority in financial services, including as a way to engage with all generations across the family - an opportunity for advisers since 95% of their client banks have an average age over 51. Globally, any delay to net zero transition will create additional material macroeconomic disruption and risks increasing the number of people worldwide who are exposed to climate-related risks and resulting poverty by hundreds of millions.

Complimentary copies of the guide are available to download from the Intelligent Partnership website: here.

Intelligent Partnership is the UK's leading provider of insights and education in the tax advantaged and alternative investments space.Our range of engaging, accessible and Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) and Personal Finance Society (PFS) CPD accredited resources includes: Regular EIS, VCT, AIM and Business Relief Industry Updates, elearning accreditations, regular showcase and masterclass events, the Growth Investor and Growth Finance Awards, and professional guides. We provide weekly investment briefings to our 12,000+ subscriber community of advisers, wealth managers, financial services and investment professionals. Find out more at www.intelligent-partnership.com.

Media Contact
For more information about this Report or any other Intelligent Partnership events please contact Lisa Best on 07878 529093 or lisa@intelligent-partnership.com

Halford Chambers
1-3 Halford Road
Richmond

Intelligent Partnership is the UK's leading provider of insights and education in the tax advantaged and alternative investments space.Our range of engaging, accessible and Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) and Personal Finance Society (PFS) CPD accredited resources includes: Regular EIS, VCT, AIM and Business Relief Industry Updates, elearning accreditations, regular showcase and masterclass events, the Growth Investor and Growth Finance Awards, and professional guides. We provide weekly investment briefings to our 12,000+ subscriber community of advisers, wealth managers, financial services and investment professionals. Find out more at www.intelligent-partnership.com.

This release was published on openPR.