Deutsche Bank Wealth Management has announced it will ‘significantly accelerate’ its ESG strategy as clients increasingly seek to add purpose to investment performance.
As part of its ambitions, the wealth management firm is adopting ESG ratings from MSCI to give clients standardised information on non-financial risks and opportunities when making investment decisions.
It will also extend its ESG product offering across discretionary wealth management and investment advisory, and launch new research, client materials and events.
The company’s recent research and roadshows have featured ESG as a central theme and plated a prominent role in major client events including its Wealth With Responsibility summit in Germany.
It has also announced former US vice president and Nobel Peace Prize-winning environmentalist Al Gore will be the keynote speaker at its upcoming Next Generation Innovation Summit in San Francisco in November. Gore is set to speak on a number of issues including responsible investing and environmental challenges.
“ESG comes up more and more often in our regular discussions with clients. ESG analysis, guidance and investments are rapidly becoming not just an important component of our client offering but the essential foundation for everything we do,” Fabrizio Campelli, global head of wealth management at Deutsche Bank Wealth Management, said.
“A new generation of clients and society as a whole are becoming increasingly aware of the responsibility that comes with wealth and the positive impact that ESG factors can have on returns. They are rightly demanding that we enable them to add purpose to investment performance,” Campelli commented.
ESG investing is estimated to represent more than $30 trillion of assets across five of the world’s major markets, or about a third of global assets under management, according to recent figures from the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance.
