'We need to be honest about what sustainable investing can do'

It was the latter that often prompted advisers to question the investment returns aspect, the conference heard.

Helen Tandy, a partner at Castlefield who has studied sustainable investments throughout her decades long career, said: “That reply..’oh, well, do you really want to [invest in sustainable assets] because you'll get really poor returns’, I worry that there might still be quite a lot of that in the industry. 

“So I want to be really positive. I want to be, you know, a huge believer. But I think there's still a lot more education that needs to happen in the wider financial services.”

carmen.reichman@ft.com