Ms. Laudenbach, before the bank advisor can advise me, he has to ask me in future whether I want to invest sustainably.

Is this a good idea?

Patrick Bernau

Responsible editor for economy and "value" of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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Oh well.

In principle, focusing on sustainability always has a positive impact.

But whether this new regulation is so useful from the start is not so clear.

What is the problem?

It starts with the question of whether sustainable investing has a big impact on private individuals.

Of course, it matters when large shareholders push corporate managers towards sustainability.

However, it is far from certain whether the individual private investor has much influence.

Many private investors together may be able to achieve more.

There is definitely a lot of movement at the moment - but if we want to achieve the climate goals, there is also a lot to do.

It starts small, but we will also need many large investors who want to make a difference together.

In any case, it is controversial whether sustainability-oriented investors should rather invest in companies that are already sustainable themselves – or rather in those that have yet to become so in order to help them do so.

Yes.

What the individual banks do will be very different.

You have great freedom there.

And we know that the different ratings often evaluate companies very differently.

The differences are much larger than in traditional risk and reward ratings.

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which is not 100% reliable either.

As an investor, how do I get an overview?

This is difficult.

At the moment it is still very difficult to see through what exactly the banks are doing.

In the end, you may need to inform yourself about the definitions of sustainability.

There are also different criteria – for some the environment is important, for others the social issues.

Maybe the law just comes too soon.

I have hope that things will get a little better with time.

If I now come to the bank as a private investor, what do I have to pay attention to?

Watch out for the cost.

An experiment in the Netherlands showed that if customers wanted to invest sustainably, the bank advisors also selected the appropriate funds - but the customers ended up paying higher fees.

Of course, this does not apply to all consultants.

It is still important to deal with your finances, with or without outside help.

After all, it's also a lot of work for the bank to examine the sustainability of companies or buy such ratings.

Even so, fees can increase.

Yes.

And I don't know what the right price would be for that, either, but that effort alone is unlikely to explain higher fees.

I can say with certainty that things are becoming less transparent.

Prices are becoming less comparable between banks.

Higher costs don't have to be a bad thing when the return on sustainable investments is higher.

The same cannot be said for sustainable investments.

The studies come to very different conclusions - it depends on the country, the time period and much more.

There is no clear conclusion yet.

For example, if the risk of investing in sustainable companies were lower, the expected return could also be lower.

What about the price comparison between sustainable and conventional investments?

It's also difficult, and transparency suffers there too.

The bank advisor must ask you at the beginning whether you want to invest sustainably.

This limits the choice of funds right from the start.

In the end, you only see the sustainable funds, but you can't compare very well how much they are more expensive.

This may be good for some customers who may not want to make as many decisions.

But there is always some risk involved.

Sustainable investment can become more expensive than it needs to be.

What helps against that?

Bank customers can go through the consultation twice.

Once for sustainable investments and once without.

Then they can compare the two offers.

And how is it for people who are well informed and know what they want?

It will be more difficult for well-informed investors.

In the future, it will be harder for you to compare what the consultant is offering you.

If the bank has different sustainability criteria than you, then it gets even more complicated.

And the more detailed the bank's sustainability criteria are, the more likely it is that the investors themselves would have different criteria.

But I hope that the situation will get even better when you have more experience with the new rules.

If investors have money to invest now, they cannot wait because of the advice rules.

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But they should avoid something that individual investors often do: they buy something and don't bother with it anymore.

Here it is worth checking again after two years to see whether the advice on sustainable investments has improved.