Sustainable Financial Services

Trends in Financial Services 

Across the financial services industry; from commercial and investment banking to diversified asset management, from capital markets to private equity and insurance; ESG issues are material to accessing capital.

The importance of sustainability considerations into global financial services has become central to strategic management of opportunities and risks. ESG (Environment, Social & Governance) Risks are now seen as mainstream financial considerations driving the integration of ESG Risk and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). Moreover, climate related financial disclosures are an expectation as stakeholders in the financial markets increasingly demand decision-useful, climate-related information. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2020, for the first time the top five risks by likelihood were environmental.

The key question facing businesses in the sector is how to get direct action in sustainable investing and how to meet the evolving standard requirements to maximise the commercial opportunity available and be considered prudent from a risk perspective. Sustainable financial services must drive performance and mitigate risks through collaboration and transformation to build long-term value. Anthesis’ financial advisory consultants support the financial services sector in its transition toward a low-carbon economy by aligning growth with due diligence.

Sustainability in the Financial Services Industry 

The financial services industry has a crucial role to play in funding the response to climate change to prevent a greater than 2-degree global warming scenario. A failure to address sustainability topics result in measurable financial and societal losses. However, engaging with modern sustainable finance practices can drive impactful growth that can facilitate the transition to a low carbon economy, encourage growth and protect financial and business institutions from climate-related risks. 

 

Accessing capital 

All financial firms must put in place the procedures to show they are looking for ESG risks and opportunities and assessing them. To close the gap between current state and stakeholder expectations, they must integrate sustainable finance methods and ESG into investment decision making, portfolio risk management, operational improvements, portfolio companies and investment holding assessments and reporting to LPs.

Financial Sector Expertise 

With over 100+ years of combined experience, Anthesis’ global team has the expertise to help financial institutions identify risks and opportunities for capital formation around decarbonisation, ESG and other sustainability topics. We support clients in understanding the landscape to proactively avoid ESG risks and position their company to capture growth in ESG & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

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We wanted the ESG screen as we were keen to understand the definition of ESG and to see the criteria you would be using. We were also interested to see how others would view us through this lens. The Anthesis screen provided us a with a “mirror”. The value to Neste was that it confirmed we are on a right track to addressing ESG issues. It also helped us to identify some potential improvement opportunities, several of which we are working on, and others that warrant further evaluation.


Employee, Neste

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Anthesis supported us in the preparation of our 2018 Integrated Report and in the development of the materiality analysis of Roche Colombia. Their experience and knowledge were key to allowing us to focus on the most important issues for our company and stakeholders, and helped them [our stakeholders]  understand our advances in environmental, economic, social and good corporate governance.

Alejandro Wilches
Corporate Social Responsibility Leader, Roche

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I have worked with Anthesis for many years. They have a depth of ESG understanding and expertise, allowing real analysis and advice on the emerging issues that are becoming increasingly material to our clients. What sets them apart is their willingness and ability to apply this, together with technology solutions, to enhance the quality and speed of their reporting.

Paul Davies
Partner, Latham & Watkins

Roche logo

Tools for Supporting the Financial Sector

RiskHorizon – The purpose made tool helps legal advisors, investors, finance professionals and deal makers to identify the material ESG risks and opportunities at an early stage of the deal cycle and take full account of the relevant issues throughout the transaction life cycle. It is a ground-breaking, cost-effective, web-based tool spanning millions of data points from more than 175 countries, covering 30+ global risks  – economic, environmental, technical, social and geo-political.

Clean CO2 – a carbon management tool that allows companies and events to offset and reduce their carbon footprint. It accompanies users throughout the process of neutralising their company’s activities and greenhouse gas emissions, helping them to achieve carbon neutrality by investing in projects to reduce emissions, such as energy efficiency, renewable energies and carbon sinks.

Footprinter  – is the leading technology platform for enterprise sustainability. Customers use Footprinter to expand the scope, reach and impact of their sustainability programs.

Learn More about Anthesis Technologies

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Anthesis’ Financial Advisory Services

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Case Studies

Private Equity Firm Environmental Due Diligence and Permit Assessment

Case Study

Anthesis conducted an Environmental Due Diligence (EDD) assessment for a portfolio of more than 50 construction material manufacturing sites for a private equity firm

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Financial Services Organisation Modern Slavery Act Compliance

Case Study

Anthesis carried out a four-stage approach to support a global financial services organisation compliance to the UK Modern Slavery Act

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Institutional Investor ESG Risks Screening

Case Study

Using the Anthesis-designed RiskHorizon™ tool,  we followed three simple steps to perform an ESG screening for an institutional investor looking to invest in a chemicals company,

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Meet our Financial Services Experts

Tim Clare
Director, UK

Part of the UK Senior Leadership Team, Tim is the Director for Financial Services, based in London. Tim has over twenty years of experience. His initial focus was on the direction of multi-site, multi-jurisdictional EHS due diligence projects undertaken as part of M&A transactions and the provision of wider EHS advice and support. 

More recently Tim has helped his clients to respond to the ESG agenda. Tim has helped clients develop overall ESG strategies and the underlying policies and implementation frameworks, broadened the scope of their due diligence to encompass ESG factors, and has worked with their assets and portfolio companies to improve their ESG performance. Tim’s current focus is on developing new ways to monitor ESG performance and to enhance their assessment and mitigation of climate change risks, including in line with the TCFD. 

Tim’s clients are drawn from across financial services, including asset managers and owners, lenders and investment banking and corporate finance. Tim currently sits on the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association’s (BVCA) Responsible Investment Advisory Group. 
Don Reed
Executive Director, North America

An Executive Director in the Anthesis Group’s North American business, Don has 20+ years of experience helping commercial and investment banks, asset managers in a range of asset classes, and other financial institutions develop and implement sustainability and ESG strategies that create long-term business value.   

Throughout his career, Don has worked with providers of capital to help them understand the nature and scale of ESG risks and opportunities, manage them over holding periods, and integrate them into credit and investment decisions and portfolio risk management processes.  He has helped many commercial and investment banks develop and implement ESG due diligence and risk management procedures and policies. He has developed a quantitative system for analyzing carbon asset risk in the power and utility industry using existing data sources for a money center bank. He has also helped a bank focused on serving the needs of entrepreneurs develop an ESG program that fits the bank’s unique market niche and differentiates it in its key markets. 

For private equity investors, he has delivered ESG integration services across the investment life cycle including ESP policy development, due diligence, operating company improvement strategies, portfolio metrics reporting systems and exit strategies. 

Don also helps financial services firms develop and implement ESG enterprise ESG programs including data management & reporting, climate change risk analysis and TCFD reporting, goal setting, developing new products with positive social and environmental impacts and reporting on their impact. 
Chris Keller
Global Head of M&A and Corporate Services

Based in our German hub, Chris Keller has more than 30 years of global experience in dealing with transaction related risks for a broad spectrum of financial investors and industry clients from natural resources to manufacturing, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. He has extensive experience on advising corporate businesses on dealing with legacy issues derived from past […]
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