US SIF — the Sustainable Investment Forum is a leading voice advancing sustainable investing across all asset classes. The forum says its mission is to rapidly shift investment practices toward sustainability, focusing on long-term investment and the generation of positive social and environmental impacts.
Its members represent $5 trillion in assets under management or advisement and include investment management and advisory firms, mutual fund companies, asset owners, data and research firms, financial planners and advisors, broker-dealers, banks, credit unions, community development financial institutions and nonprofit associations.
Equities News caught up with influential members of US SIF at the organization’s recent Forum 2024 in Chicago.
Equities News: Tell us a little about yourself and your work.
Jennifer Coombs: I’m the director of client cuccess for Ethos ESG, which is part of ACA global. ACA global is a risk compliance and consulting firm for the financial services sector.
Ethos was brought on board at ACA to help with regulatory compliance in the ESG space, specifically in the European markets. But Ethos as a software can do more than that. It’s useful in reporting impact for clients, and can also be useful in looking at historic engagement in terms of portfolios and just a broader way of analyzing overall impact in a variety of different areas.
Previously I was with the College for Financial Planning and I still am an adjunct professor with them. I developed the CSRIC, the Chartered SRI Counselor designation. There’s quite a few of them here. Last I checked, there’s about 1,300 people who have completed the program. It’s also used as an elective at a couple of universities — it’s an elective at Georgetown and the University of Denver.
EN: What’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen at the US SIF Conference?
JC: Trying to pin it down on one thing is really challenging. I love how US SIF has made an effort this year to really focus on financial advisers. They offered this track this year on having sessions designated specifically to them. Times past really was geared more towards asset managers, I think because, historically, they tend to bring on board a lot more assets under management.
But the idea that you can have a lot more little guys coming on board with potentially a lower annual fee to become a member of SIF, but yet, you know, you still have access to all of these big, beautiful brains that are interested in the space, I think is great. I was very interested to see yesterday, there were a few interesting sessions for financial advisers, giving ideas and tools that they could potentially use to better their practices, ways that they could network, ways that they could share ideas.
EN: What are you looking forward to in the second half of 2024?
JC: The election is a big deal for everybody. Unfortunately, it determines whether or not, in some cases what we do is going to be heavily championed, or, in some cases, maybe illegal, right? And that’s the contrast, which is quite scary. I feel as though it’s not going to really hinder any of us from doing our work because we’re so passionate about it.
What I’m devoted to is really trying to make this as nonpartisan an issue as possible, try to bring as many people over in this direction as possible, regardless of the outcome of whatever the heck happens in Washington this year. This is what I’ve chosen to do. And it’s what I’m passionate about.
Check out all the Sustainable Finance Influencers.