Regardless of the criteria used – be it funds flow, media mentions, or the capacity to fundamentally reshape investment markets, product design, and financial advice – there is no hotter investment topic right now than Responsible Investing.

Once considered a fringe part of the market, catering for investors solely motivated by ‘saving the planet’, the field of Responsible Investing – encompassing approaches such as ESG integration, negative and positive screening, and impact investing – is now very much mainstream.

Furthermore, many experts believe the practices, disciplines and methodologies underpinning Responsible Investing will eventually become the norm, rendering the term redundant.

In the present, however, Australian Financial Advisers and their clients have much to ponder, faced with an ever-expanding array of investment products and solutions which offer both fundamental investment capabilities – such as alpha generation and risk reduction – and the opportunity to achieve positive social and environmental outcomes.

Whilst more and more advisers are building their skills and developing their offerings in this specialised space, many are still uncertain how best to incorporate Responsible Investing into their client conversations, their advice processes, their portfolio construction techniques, and their compliance obligations.

In this paper, we draw on the experiences and reflections of financial advisers who have placed Responsible Investing at the very core of their client proposition. These reflections – first captured in the PIMCO sponsored ‘ESG Portfolio Series’ podcasts – represent practical, enlightening, and actionable insights that can help advisers progress their Responsible Investing journey, no matter where on that journey they currently are.