Lonsec’s Sustainability Score – Helping you to help advisers

Lonsec’s new Sustainability Score shows investors how your investment product is contributing to a better world.
Make your product the clear choice for advisers seeking a genuinely sustainable solution for their client.

Providing greater clarity for investors

As the popularity of ESG investments has grown in recent years, there continues to be a mismatch with what ESG means for fund managers – an investment process – and what it means for advisers and their clients – the ‘goodness’ of a portfolio.

The Lonsec Sustainability Score helps to bridge this gap and provides a way for advisers and their clients to identify investments that align with their values and help shape their portfolios.

Lonsec’s investment ratings reflect a range of factors that contribute to investment outcomes, including an assessment of the fund’s ESG process. The Lonsec Sustainability Score adds to this utilising the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) framework to address the opportunities and risks not captured in traditional ESG assessments.

Sustainability and the FASEA standards

All financial advisers are required to comply with the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) Code of Ethics Standard.

The Code’s standards require advisers to act in the best interests of their clients, which means that product recommendations must be appropriate to meet the client’s objectives, and consider the client’s broader, long-term interests. This includes any social or ethical preferences the client might have.

The Financial Planning Association (FPA) guidelines on the FASEA Code of Ethics states: “Financial advisers should ask their clients if there are any environmental, social or ethical considerations that are important to them”.

For an adviser to then take account of their client’s preferences, they need to be able to understand what a fund manager’s portfolio looks like. That goes well beyond a view on ESG process.

The Lonsec Sustainability Score

Lonsec has partnered with Impact Cubed, a specialist data provider that collates and creates outcome-based impact data for listed companies and securities globally.
The data is used to undertake a detailed analysis of the underlying holdings within a portfolio, netting the positive SDG Contribution against the SDG Detraction, for each investment within a portfolio. The result is a detailed report that shows how a fund rates on each measure, along with an overall Sustainability Score symbolised by between one and five bees, with five being the top-score.
The score is a measure of the portfolio ‘goodness’ and does not constitute a rating in itself. It should be used in combination with the Lonsec Rating.

Our Score

The score is a relative ranking compared to the funds peer group

Bottom 10%

Next 20%

Middle 40%

Next 20%

Top 10%

Find out how to get a Sustainability Score for your fund

Tom Akay | Fund Managers

Melbourne

E: Tom.Akay@lonsec.com.au

M: +61 437 418 477

Sustainability Report

The Sustainability Report is a two-page report detailing the relative success of a fund in supporting the United Nations Sustainability Goals together with any exposure to six controversial industries. The Lonsec Sustainability Score reflects the net the positive SDG Contribution against the SDG Detraction, for each investment within a portfolio, with the peer ranked score of between 1 and 5, represented by a number of bees.

The report also provides a snapshot of the environmental impact, carbon impact and top five contributors and detractors of the fund.
Many funds utilise negative screens and the Lonsec Sustainability Report details any exclusions imposed by the fund manager to 33 of the most common industry exclusions.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.”

Get a Sustainability Score for your investment product

Learn more about how our investment research team can work with you to ensure your investment product has a Sustainability Score, allowing ethical investors oversight of your funds investments.

Contact: Tom.Akay@lonsec.com.au or +61 437 418 477

Important information: Any express or implied rating or advice is limited to general advice, it doesn’t consider any personal needs, goals or objectives.  Before making any decision about financial products, consider whether it is personally appropriate for you in light of your personal circumstances. Obtain and consider the Product Disclosure Statement for each financial product and seek professional personal advice before making any decisions regarding a financial product.