Nowhere is this seen more than in the Cordes Foundation; the investment fund set up by investor Ron Cordes from Maryland, USA.
Now headed by his daughter Steph Stephenson, the fund has increased its proportion of impact investments from 63 per cent to 100 per cent, while maintaining an impressive yearly growth rate of 8 per cent.
Financial advisers will also need to determine whether their clients want to follow sustainable and responsible investing (SRI) guidelines, which simply aim to eliminate investing in companies that are involved with or sell harmful products.
Thereafter, establishing what kind of ESG investor your client wants to be is important.
From “The Discretionary” to “The Fundamentalist”, those wanting to impact invest will have varying degrees of commitment to the cause.
Ascertaining the extent to which your client considers worldly good to be the fundamental, secondary or tertiary aim of an investment will be necessary.
And as with any investor, millennial HNW investors will require bespoke advice depending on the kind of investments they want to pursue.
Some will want to lean more on social benefits than environmental ones, or vice versa.
Naturally, being ready to delve into either strain in greater depth will be necessary to provide high-quality counsel.
For financial advisers, realising the strength of ESG investments, and their prioritisation amongst the growing number of millennial investors, is vital.
This trend is set to grow in the future, so being prepared for the attitudes of the next generation will be crucial to long-term success.
Over the coming years, as socially responsible investing rises in popularity as a result of the millennial investor, we are likely to see a change in the way people manage their investment strategies, be it as businesses or individuals.
Alpa Bhakta is the chief executive of Butterfield Mortgages Limited.