US Market: New York Life Launches Green Investment Challenge

New York Life Investments has announced the launch of its “One-Talk, One-Ton” Challenge, designed to encourage financial advisors to discuss sustainable investing with their clients.

Through the “One-Talk, One-Ton” Challenge, New York Life Investments is committing to offsetting one ton of carbon emissions for each conversation financial advisors pledge to have with clients on sustainable investing, beginning on Zero Emissions Day (September 21) through October 23, 2020. During this five-week period, New York Life Investments will purchase up to 10,000 carbon offsets – one ton per conversation. These carbon offsets ultimately seek to neutralize those activity-generated emissions that cannot be eliminated.

The pledge campaign focuses on driving greater engagement between advisors and their clients on sustainable investing and comes after recent New York Life Investments research found that most investors (58%) contend that their advisors play the biggest role in determining their investments, yet only 35% are aware of sustainable investing. Among investors broadly, 53% identified themselves as “values-driven,” 84% of whom expressed interest in discussing sustainable investing with their advisors.

“As investors increasingly embrace values-driven investing, it’s critical that advisors support and encourage their interest by introducing opportunities to marry their investment strategy with precisely those values,” said Yie-Hsin Hung, CEO of New York Life Investment Management. “Our ‘One-Talk, One Ton‘ Challenge is meant as an incentive to encourage advisors to engage their clients on a topic that, as our research suggests, is critically important to them, while at the same time, joining us in making a commitment on Zero Emissions Day to offset the adverse effects of carbon emissions. Doing so will not only help address a critical environmental issue, but it will also meaningfully fortify their relationships with their clients as they seek to build long-term, lasting partnerships.”

The New York Life Investments “One-Talk, One-Ton” Challenge consists of four stages:

1. Advisors pledge to have at least one sustainable investing-related conversation with a client each week beginning on Zero Emissions Day (September 21) and ending on October 23, 2020.
2. In order to prepare themselves, advisors can then use New York Life Investments’ educational resources, including the U.S. CANDRIAM Academy, the first free-to-access, accredited ESG training platform, to learn more about sustainable investing.
3. From there, advisors should engage their clients in meaningful conversations about the importance of sustainable investing, the availability of ESG funds, the meaning of ESG ratings and other critical sustainable investing topics.
4. New York Life Investments will offset one ton of carbon emissions for each client conversation advisors pledge to have, up to 10,000 total offsets.

Advisors interested in taking the pledge can do so by registering with their information here: https://www.morethaninvesting.com/takethepledge