Using advanced data science and registered investment advisors, OpenInvest brings measurement and reporting to the $30 trillion global ESG investment market
OpenInvest, the leading values-based financial services company, today unveils a new way for registered investment advisors (RIAs) to give investors unparalleled insight into the impact of their investments. OpenInvest’s Portfolio Diagnosis, part of the company’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) solutions, is a new service that includes the industry’s most comprehensive data with tangible impact metrics.
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The ESG investing industry is set to encapsulate $45T in total assets by the end of 2020, according to JP Morgan. The surge is driven by consumers’ desire to invest with a conscience and is enabled by advancements in the information economy, allowing consumers to better understand the companies they choose to invest in.
“Now more than ever, people want to make their voices and values heard through their investments. They also want to understand the resulting impact,” said Josh Levin, co-founder of OpenInvest. “In response to overwhelming demand and input from hundreds of clients and advisors, we are thrilled to announce Portfolio Diagnosis. It’s finally easy for any advisor to give their clients an intuitive, meaningful, and accurate snapshot of how their investments are impacting the world around them.”
For example, an investor can learn that their investments translate to a number of trees planted, an amount of carbon not emitted into the atmosphere, hours of lives saved from not supporting cigarette companies, or that money did not go into corporations that support the NRA.
Portfolio Diagnosis: The Highest-Quality Data, Impact Metrics & Dynamic Investing
As a subscription-based service, RIAs can use Portfolio Diagnosis on an ongoing quarterly basis with clients to deliver a new level of impact reporting. Specifically, advisors can deliver quantitative reports that visualize current ESG holdings, their impact and backtest against historical data.
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The product, which has been in development for the last three years, features unique to the industry include:
Comprehensive Data: OpenInvest’s scoring system analyzes billions of data points from trusted matter experts like the Carbon Disclosure Project, to in-house research and public financial reports.
Detailed Impact Metrics: Specific insights into the impact a portfolio has shown reported in a digestible manner to the investor. Unlike legacy solutions that assign an overall ESG score across causes for clients, OpenInvest uses multiple indicators within a specific cause, letting clients choose which indicator or cause is most important.
Values-Based Dynamic Investing: The ability to seamlessly invest in companies that meet expectations in areas including gender equality, LGBTIA+ rights, and ethical supply chains, as well as divest from those that don’t, in areas like fossil fuels, deforestation, and greenhouse gas emissions, according to the values of the individual investor.
RIAs in the Loop: Designed for investors who want a financial advisor’s guidance throughout the entire process as opposed to robo-only investing. What’s more, it’s an ideal solution for RIAs who are looking to offer new specialized services on an ongoing basis.
“You no longer need a Ph.D. in mathematics to understand your social impact. OpenInvest’s impact metrics are designed so that everyone can understand them and the impact their portfolios have on the world around them. Now, people can emotionally connect to their portfolios in a way that wasn’t possible before,” said Aaron Brachman, Managing Director at Steward Partners Global Advisory.
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