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Our sustainable portfolios

Now more than ever, ethical investing is becoming a priority. With issues around climate change and global warming becoming more and more prominent in the press, we have seen a peak in clients asking for Ethical portfolios.

We therefore have put together our own ‘sustainable’ portfolio of funds.

What is a sustainable portfolio?

The concept behind the portfolios is ‘opt in’ for positive choices (such as investing in companies that have a good Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policy) rather than ‘opting out’ of negative criteria (for example, saying no investments in armaments).

The portfolios follow the same asset allocation and risk profiling as our standard model portfolios, with assets in Fixed Interest, UK equities, Developed Markets and Emerging Markets.

At launch on 1st April 2020, we have not found a suitable property fund to fulfil this section of the asset allocation. We have therefore elected to add this percentage of the normal asset allocation into the Fixed Interest sector (5% as at 1st April 2020). This will of course be reviewed and when a suitable property fund is found, we will look to allocate the correct percentage back into the property asset class.

We elected to add this proportion to the Fixed Interest asset class as we view Property funds as being relatively low-risk. Therefore, we felt that choosing the lower risk end of the asset allocation spectrum would be more suited to fill the void of the property fund.

How are the portfolios constructed?

The portfolios are broadly constructed in the same way as our normal model portfolios.

  • We have completed an Ethical Questionnaire for this portfolio, which as detailed above, only includes ‘positive’ criteria
  • The ‘suitable’ funds are then narrowed down using the ‘Fund Eco Market’ research tool
  • Once the list of funds for each asset class is compiled, research is run through FE Analytics to ascertain which of the funds highlighted as being suitable are available on Elevate (or any other required platform)
  • Once the funds available on Elevate have been narrowed down, a review of the quartile scores and FE numbers of these funds takes place
  • We then narrow down the selection to a suitable size portfolio with diversification across the asset classes (between 15 and 20 funds total)
  • This portfolio this then added to FE Analytics to ascertain the overall FE Risk score of the portfolio. This should be in-line with the matching risk portfolio of our ‘normal’ range of model portfolios.

The models are reviewed on a quarterly basis.

So, you can see that we’ve put a lot of work into creating these portfolios! We hope that they will prove popular.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about investing in our Sustainable Portfolios, please email info@ftof-finance.co.uk

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To find out more about how we can help with your investments, pop in to our Norwich office. Alternatively, we are happy to come and visit you in your Norfolk home or office. Just get in touch to arrange an appointment.

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