ESG done right

How to avoid the pitfalls of virtue signalling to build trust instead.

This week

???Despite the doom and gloom decimating the crypto markets, the UK’s technology sector had reason to be cheerful.?London Tech Week?opened to the news that?British start-ups have raised more funding in the first five months of this year than in the whole of 2020, and that?London ranks as the world’s leading startup hub.

?????Now, read on?to learn why:

①?Forward-thinking financial firms?want to be B Corps.

②?Being seen to behave correctly?builds trust.

③?Big banks know?never to let a good crisis go to waste.

④?Blockchain’s huge potential?is loftier than the crypto casino.

⑤?Content marketing is as powerful in bad times?as good.

⑥?Shorter is almost always better?when it comes to writing.

⑦?NFTs are a fool‘s game.

What's new?

①?Money Marketing reported?on Octopus Investments’ CEO pledging to boost the firm’s B Corp score.

In short:

• “Octopus Investments has laid out its ambition to boost its B Corp score by more than 10 points next time it goes through the accreditation process. Certified B Corps are companies verified by B Lab to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.”
• “A score of 80 must be reached to achieve the B Corp certification. Although the average company will score 50 the first time they take the assessment. Octopus Investments’ current score is 94.6.”
• “All five stakeholders – people, customers, community, shareholders, and the environment – are considered within every decision Octopus makes. This has changed the way the business measures its success.”

Why does it matter?

People have long wanted to do business with companies that are having a positive impact on society. That’s why environmental, social and governance standards are so discussed in City boardrooms. Sadly, few financial firms get the execution quite right. Many jump on the woke bandwagon and fire up their marketing machines for a flurry of virtue signalling and greenwashing. As Goldmach Sachs found out only last week though, making hollow ESG claims not only harms your credibility and disgruntles your clients, but can ultimately prompt?the SEC to come knocking on your door. This is not the way.

②?The primary marketing benefit of running your business according to sound ESG principles is that it fosters trust with your stakeholders. And trust in financial services is hard to come by. That’s why having a credible third party like B Lab conduct a thorough and exhaustive audit of your business before issuing you a score and - hopefully - B Corp accreditation is so powerful. It proves you’re behaving fairly and justly.

That trust is just as valuable internally than externally. And, of course, it helps to attract new talent as well. It’s ultimately about bolstering your business to withstand the future.

What's next?

Take action

Become a B Corp.

Or, at the very least, get your COO looking into it next week. It won’t be easy, it’s a long process, but that’s rather the point: it’s accreditation with credibility. Do the work.

Once you have, by all means, let your marketing team shout it from the rafters.

Get help

Visit InMarketing, my resource library?for leaders in finance or technology who want to innovate, interact and influence.

Join my InMarketing Twitter community, where you can ask questions or comments of me but also your fellow community members of senior marketing practitioners.

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Can I ask you a favour??If you found this useful?or know someone who would, please share it. It would really help me to grow the community of regular IMTW readers.

What else?

Three other articles?that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

NatWest eyes digital wealth acquisitions

③?Big banks know?never to let a good crisis go to waste.

• “NatWest could follow JP Morgan Chase and snap up a UK digital wealth fintech amid a slowdown in the sector, which might make acquisitions more attractive to the big financial institutions.”
• “The retail investment and wealth sector is suffering from a marked slowdown recently as investors are put off by turbulent markets, rising inflation and economic uncertainty. This contrasts with the sector enjoying a boom time during Covid, as a wave of new retail investors with time on their hands signed up to the platforms.”
• “The economic downturn is hitting the digital wealth and investment firms, with falling fees and smaller margins.”

TECHNOLOGY

Yes, crypto is crashing again. Blockchain will survive

④?Blockchain’s huge potential?is loftier than the crypto casino.

• “Blockchain, the technology that makes cryptocurrency possible, has the potential to be just as transformative as the internet innovations on which we depend every day, and industries like supply chain management, finance [including, this week,?intraday FX swaps and repo trading?- Ed] and pharma have already begun to find uses for it.”
• “Wherever tamper-proof, independent record-keeping is needed, blockchain could keep all the receipts, available and safe, for anyone to see.”
• “Just as most everyone keeps going to work whether the stock market is soaring or tanking, the practical, real-world work of developing blockchain technology will keep on going, independent of the histrionics of the market.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

Morgan Stanley CMO on marketing in economic downturn

⑤?Content marketing is as powerful in bad times?as good.

• “At Morgan Stanley, Alice Milligan, chief marketing officer, has been honing the company’s brand strategy to be a one-stop resource for all types of investors - new and established - in both good times and bad.”
• “Amid the market’s upheaval, the brand is focusing on reassuring customers that they can depend on Morgan Stanley to help them ‘weather the storm.’ This includes offering more education on what is happening in the economy and with gas prices.
• "Customers have been gravitating toward Morgan Stanley’s equity research reports and podcasts but the jury might still be out on the brand’s entrance into the metaverse.”

One more thing...

⑥?Jane Rosenzweig?shared some great tips this week in the Harvard Business Review on?how to write concisely?because, as she rightly says, “when your prose is unnecessarily wordy and repetitive, you tax your readers by asking them to focus their attention on figuring out what you’re saying rather than thinking about what you’re saying.”?

1. Delete words that don’t add anything to your sentence.
2. Cut the overlap.
3. Instead of telling us what you’re going to do in a sentence, just do it.

Off cuts

The stories that?almost?made this week’s newsletter.

FINANCE

?????FCA register remains ‘unintelligible’ for investors

???BNP Paribas approached Dutch government about ABN Amro

???Nutmeg records ￡19.3m loss post-JP Morgan takeover

???Credit Suisse banker removed from role for unauthorised messages to clients?and?Deutsche Bank installs app on bankers’ phones to track private messages

?????Citi to hire 4,000 tech staff to deal with digital growth

TECHNOLOGY

???BIS Innovation Hub sets out new projects

?????How Emmanuel Macron pulled off a French fintech boom

???Money 20/20 Europe: A new era for a digital Sterling

???Metaverse could be worth $5 trillion by 2030 says McKinsey

???Revolut criticises UK banking licence delay?as it?launches in Latin America, Middle East and South Asia?and becomes?the fastest-growing fintech in Spain

MEDIA & MARKETING

???What CEOs really think of their CMOs

???Bank of America to upgrade client communication in digital app

???Communication expert leaving UBS

???Four ways to identify B2B influencers in 2022

???The next big social platform is…the smartphone’s homescreen

The last word

⑦?Bill Gates?on NFTs at?a TechCrunch climate change conference:

“An asset class that is based on greater fool theory - that somebody is going to pay more for it than you do - and that has at its heart anonymity - so you can evade taxation and laws? I’m not involved in that.”

About

Written for CEOs, marketers and other leaders in the financial sector,?InMarketing This Week?is a showcase for news likely to impact them - delivered with insight on why it matters and ideas on what to do about it. It’s published every Sunday to give you a head start on the week. Read it?here, or?subscribe?to?have it delivered straight to your inbox at six, before it's available anywhere else.