Scottish Widows is harnessing mobile technology and ESG data to give its customers greater transparency and understanding of how sustainable their retirement portfolio is.

The brand new Find Your Impact (FYI) tool will provide members of Scottish Widows employer pension schemes with their own personalised sustainability impact ratings within seconds, based on the companies and funds they are invested in.

Using in-depth data analytics, FYI assesses companies’ carbon footprint, waste and board diversity to provide members with a clear overview of where their money is invested and whether these companies are making a positive impact across these areas.

The new technology also lets members voice their opinion on a wide range of investment topics, issues and proposals, including questions on specific companies and their practices.

Scottish Widows says it hopes FYI will help drive interest and engagement in pensions by making it simple for people to see how and where their money is invested.

“Using in-depth data analytics, FYI assesses companies’ carbon footprint, waste and board diversity”

Customers will also be able to see how their investments are performing financially alongside seeing a range of sustainability parameters, bringing financial and non-financial performance together in one place.

Data used by the tool to analyse each member’s underlying holdings is sourced from widely used ESG data providers including S&P Trucost and MSCI.

Relevant data points are then displayed to members and a traffic light system (red, amber, green) shows them the ESG impact of their pensions in simple terms – such as the equivalent number of miles travelled by car or the number of household waste bins.

The new service reflects a growing demand for sustainable investments, along with greater need for transparency around which sectors people’s pensions are invested in.

“Earlier this year Scottish Widows committed to halving the carbon footprint of its entire £170bn portfolio of investments by 2030”

Four out of five customers with a Defined Contribution (DC) pension said they would like their pension to be invested ‘to do good’, as well as provide them with a financial return, according to a recent Scottish Widows survey.

Earlier this year Scottish Widows committed to halving the carbon footprint of its entire £170bn portfolio of investments by 2030, on its path to reaching net zero by 2050.

Maria Nazarova-Doyle, Head of Pension Investments and Responsible Investments, said: “The tool has a ‘have your say” feature which will be used to collect the views of our members about what they want and expect from the companies we invest their money in. This will be taken into consideration as we shape our broader responsible investment and stewardship strategy.”

Gerald Wellesley, Trustee of the Scottish Widows Master Trust, commented: “With climate change in the spotlight more than ever right now, a growing number of our members are interested in where their money is invested and the impact that investing sustainably can have on the world around us.

“This new tool gives them an easy-to-understand snapshot of their investments and enables them to see the part they can play in influencing positive change, whilst also considering the financial performance. If this encourages members to allocate more of their savings to their pension, this will be an additional benefit.”

Find Your Impact will be launched across Scottish Widows’ full product range and available on Google Play and the App Store as part of the Scottish Widows app. It was developed in partnership with global wealth management platform provider, FNZ.

 

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