FNZ, the leading global wealth management platform, today announced that it has made a strategic investment in GIST, the pioneering impact data and analytics company that provides investors and companies with quantitative, comparable, and verifiable measures of corporate impact and performance across all four capitals: natural, human, social, and produced.
As well as supporting GIST’s rapid growth and mission, FNZ’s investment will build on the existing collaboration between the two companies and forms part of a wider partnership which sees GIST’s sustainability data integrated into its market-leading sustainable investment solution, FNZ Impact. The integration builds on the world leading ESG data currently available within FNZ Impact and accelerates the companies shared ambition to open-up wealth by making sustainability data more accessible and transparent so that investors can invest in the things they care about, on their own terms.
FNZ Impact, a solution integrated into the wider FNZ wealth management platform, which supports over 650 of the world’s leading financial institutions and 8,000 wealth management firms in 21 countries, helps financial institutions to provide their clients with hyper-personalized, transparent information around the environmental and social impacts of investment portfolios, and offers the ability to optimise portfolios based not just on risk appetite, goals and tax but also by personal preferences and values.
This means retail investors, their advisers and wealth managers can better understand the issues that matter most to them and address these by allocating capital accordingly, making investment part of the solution to global challenges.
There is growing awareness and scrutiny of corporate ESG credentials from investors. However, current ESG ratings and rankings can pose challenges due to biases and a lack of standardisation, transparency, independence and credible information.
GIST addresses this challenge by using a science-based approach to measure and value corporate impacts in monetary terms based on the ‘Four Capitals’ framework (natural capital, human capital, social capital and produced capital). This consistent and universal framework is used by the United Nations and a growing number of investors and corporates to evaluate performance and report on impact. GIST’s monetized impact values can also be mapped to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), providing clarity and insight on the extent to which a company’s activities have contributed to each of the SDGs.
In doing so, GIST (founded in 2011, and employing over 100 people across its offices in Geneva, London, Mumbai and Singapore) provides a complete and consistent picture of materiality, highlights hidden risks, allows meaningful comparisons between companies and across sectors, and supports evidence-based decision making.
Dr Vian Sharif, Head of Sustainability at FNZ, said: “The imperative for robust, science-based impact data has never been stronger, particularly ahead of a number of global regulatory changes, which require investment firms and advisers to incorporate clients’ ESG preferences into their suitability assessments.
“The allocation of capital is critical to driving the change required to transition to net-zero and building a more sustainable economy and society. By democratising information on the impact of portfolios, FNZ Impact empowers investors, their advisers and wealth managers to contribute to a sustainable future for the next generation through their investment decisions.
“In GIST, we believe we’ve found not only one of the most rigorous and transparent methodologies in the market, but a company and team with a mission aligned strongly to our own and whose growth we are excited to support.”
Pavan Sukhdev, Founder & CEO of GIST, said: “We are delighted to have FNZ as a strategic investor and a partner in our mission. FNZ and GIST have shared goals and we believe that, together, we can drive real, measurable change in the investment landscape by empowering investors with the impact data they need to make better informed decisions at all stages of investment life cycles, from asset selection to risk management to exits.
“Our shared mission is to embed GIST impact methodology and algorithms into every responsible investor’s toolkit. There has never been greater urgency for investors and corporations to recognise and quantify all dimensions of investment impacts, and in doing so, to redefine corporate performance.
“FNZ’s support will boost GIST’s objective to mainstream our solutions, enabling more and more investors and corporations to measure performance across all value dimensions, manage material risks, and make better decisions in the interest of shareholders as well as other significant stakeholders.”