Becoming a #NETZEROHERO

We believe that our business is stronger than ever due to our unwavering commitment to sustainability, our people and our purpose.

This year has had enough uproar to shake every business to its core. It seems that every day there is a new piece of bad news that makes us feel terrified, outraged, or completely hopeless. We have officially entered a recession; job losses are rife and yet here at First Wealth we are stable.

The calm during the storm

Personally, having only joined First Wealth in September 2020, I have found the grounded nature of the business to be extremely settling. I hope our clients and community feel the same way too.

Hearing from our senior management team, who have been around long enough to remember the devastating impact of the 2008 crash, they recognise the risks that lie ahead but have ensured our ship is watertight.

How have we managed to do it?

We believe our resilience is due to our unwavering commitment to sustainability, our people and our purpose. Since day one, we’ve always teamed strong values and our sense of purpose with the pursuit of profit. We treat our social and environmental impact as a primary measure of success, and we prioritise our purpose even in cases where it may not drive profitability. We are at the early stages of becoming a fully sustainable business, taking significant steps in the right direction.

B Corp Spirit

Being part of the B Corp community is at the heart of our strategy to be a force for good. Research shows that in normal times, B Corp businesses grow 28 times faster than the average business. (source) This is because B Corps meet demand from purpose-led consumers while attracting and retaining the best talent to work for them. They also cut through to consumers wary of greenwash and empty commitments from other brands.

The facts and figures

This translates to greater resilience during hard economic times too. Research from asset manager BlackRock shows that companies with a commitment to social purpose and sustainability have been more resilient during the Covid-19 market crash. Investment funds tracking the performance of companies with better ratings on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues lost less money than those including worse performers in 94% of cases during the crisis, according to BlackRock’s research. (Source)

Actions speak louder than words

Below are some of the ways we have demonstrated our commitment to becoming a more sustainable business over the last few months:

• Switching to renewable energy supplier; Bulb.
• Choosing ‘Who Gives A Crap’ recycled, plastic-free toilet roll for our office
• Moving forward in a paperless manner wherever possible by investing in technology such as DocuSign
• Where we do have to use paper we will be using Red Inc, the UK’s first B Corp-certified office supplies company.
• Working from home during COVID-19 and beyond. We have embedded fully flexible working into our business.
• Embarking on the first steps of the journey to calculate, and eventually offset, our business carbon emissions
  Looking forward

We’re incredibly grateful to team up with clients who understand that to recover from this crisis and build a healthier future for us all, we must prioritise long-term social and environmental impact, over short-term cash returns.

This document is marketing material for a retail audience and does not constitute advice or recommendations. Past performance is not a guide to future performance and may not be repeated. The value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amount originally invested.