An eight trillion dollar investment for stewardship and impact funds could be coming our way – has your financial adviser noticed?
According to Gillian Tett in the Financial Times three-quarters of millennials in the USA put a high priority on social goals when they invest compared with a third of baby-boomers. And, she says, US millennials are expected to inherit around $12tn of assets in the next decade or two.
What a market opportunity for stewardship investment!
Tett’s article is about impact investing. This focuses on the ‘what – renewable energy, social housing, improved health outcomes, education.
Meanwhile the coming stewardship agenda focuses on the how – how the company is led, how it looks after its customers and truly puts their needs first, how it involves and empowers its people, whether it balances the short and long-term in pursuit of a purpose that goes beyond profit.
So what we need now, in readiness for this, is an array of new market offerings which in a simple way show the next generation of savers a profitable path to investing in tomorrow’s companies. In the UK Daniel Godfrey made a bold attempt with The People’s Trust . We need to turn stewardship from wholesale to retail.
So that new generation of concerned investors can put their money into long term wealth creation with a human face. They can then put their money where their brains and hearts are. They can invest with a long term focus through investment vehicles which select competitive companies which have a human purpose, not pirates or predators or asset strippers.
This is what the customers of the investment industry are increasingly asking for. This what natural entrepreneurs and business leaders have been asking for. It’s what voters and governments sense is missing from the capitalism of today. Investment leaders like Larry Fink are starting to talk about it.
The stewardship agenda is slowly becoming mainstream. Try asking your own financial advisor what she or he is doing to reflect this.