The Ethical Invesment Opportunity

Across the country, we’re seeing a shift towards consumers being more ethical.

From the removal of plastic straws, the promotion of re-usable coffee cups, and the plastic bag charge, to large scale strikes taken up by environmentally-minded schoolkids – ethical has gone mainstream.

And this trend is showing in the way consumers spend their money. Since 2010, the money spent on ethical products has nearly doubled to £40 billion in 2017, according to a market report from Ethical Consumer.

But does this translate to the macro level of investment in ethical markets? According to a report on this topic from Triodos Bank published in late 2018, yes.

Triodos Bank predicts the ethical and socially responsible investment market will be worth £48 billion by 2027. Three years ago it was worth less than a third of that. One fifth of investors are currently planning to invest ethically, and this figure rises to 50% of those between the ages of 18 and 34.

Does this trend translate to the enquiries submitted through Unbiased?

The Rise of Ethical Enquiries

Enquiries submitted through the key terms ‘ethical’ or ‘socially responsible’ made up over 10% of all investment enquiries over the past six months – increasing from 8.7% over the six months before that.

This means that enquiries with these key terms are now the fourth largest investment area, behind the far-reaching scope of the terms ‘investing for income’ (44%), ‘ISAs’ (22%), and ‘investment trusts’ (13%).

This doesn’t even paint the full picture, as the terms ‘ethical’ or ‘socially responsible’ found their way into 4% of ‘investing for income’ enquiries, 5% of ‘ISAs’ enquiries, and 6% of ‘investment trusts’ enquiries.

The Ethical Opportunities

What’s the opportunity here? Well, despite more than half of investors saying that they would support ethical investments according to Triodos Bank, 73% have never been offered this option.

And as clients have skipped the ‘investing for income’ key term and gone straight for ‘ethical’ and ‘socially responsible’, we can see their commitment is strong.

So here we have a market of ethically minded investors, where the opportunity is not only strong, but growing. And putting the bottom line to one side for a moment, doing your bit to help the world is no bad thing.