About this Survey
We conducted a survey of 300+ women from across with the world with top five countries being Hong Kong, Singapore, UK, USA and UAE. The survey was conducted from October to December 2018.
The majority of respondents were aged between 31 and 50 years and had an annual household income of above US$50,000.
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Checking in with women again
In 2018, Moxie Future published its ground breaking research, Understanding female investors – women using capital to change the world, confirming our hypothesis that many women care about where their money is invested.
Given the overwhelming interest in our first report, we wanted to check in with women again. Although this time, we did it a little differently. We wanted to connect more intimately with the female investing community, so we appointed our Ambassadors to drive interest in their own communities, many of which are from the largest financial centers in the world. Our Ambassadors asked their own investment communities to take a survey for us, and we think the answers are important.
Why? Because we are all trying to move in the same direction—and because the questions we asked were focused on identifying solutions for our community.
Because We Already Know
care about where their money is invested
feel a sense of urgency to invest responsibly
are motivated to be responsible investors
We Asked Women
When you are thinking about investing, where do you go for information?
- Online information remains the main ‘go-to’ resource, with over half of respondents using branded internet pages.
- Women like to speak with their peers – 52% of respondents connect with their friends and social networks to talk about their investment decisions. In fact, respondents told us that this is more important than talking with partners, husbands or boyfriends (43%).
- According to our results, 45% of women look to a financial advisor for guidance but banks are less important to our respondents with only 18% using their banks for guidance.
- That said, anecdotal feedback from our focus groups indicated that many women feel frustrated by lack of access to or information about sustainable and responsible investing through their traditional channels.
- Some women cited examples of financial advisors being unable to answer questions on sustainability options and mentioned a lack of transparency and level of mistrust.
We Asked Women
What kind of services and channels would help you do more as a sustainable investor?
- 71% of female investors surveyed want access to a ‘marketplace’ to help them find suitable investment products. This would help connect motivated women with practical solutions.
- Our respondents want to get more educated about sustainable investing – but prefer doing so online (70%) versus in person (43%), likely do to time constraints.
- An investment community is an important channel for our respondents, and 53% want to participate in in-person, sustainable investment communities. That said, online communities still play a role at 51%.
- We also pitched the idea of financial coaching and how sustainable investing may fall into this. There was agreement from the majority of respondents that this would help female investors in setting an action plan for personal investment decisions, as well as identifying long term goals and how these relate to investments.
OF FEMALE INVESTORS WANT ACCESS TO A ‘MARKETPLACE’ TO HELP THEM FIND SUITABLE INVESTMENT PRODUCTS
We Asked Women
Are events on sustainable investing important to you?
- Yes! 80% of the female investors that we surveyed want more events specifically targeting women interested in sustainable and responsible investing.
- Women felt very strongly about using these channels to connect to and network with other like-minded women and learn about responsible investing from industry experts among a group of their peers.
- Women are also looking for experts to help them understand how to evaluate these investments – getting granular and seeking practical tools that they can use in their own decision making.
- Anecdotal feedback from our focus groups indicates that some women feel more comfortable discussing investing in women-only environments.
- Investment circles are important to women. They are keen to learn from subject matter experts, listen to the experiences of other women and network with other female investors.
of the female investors that we surveyed want more events specifically targeting women
We Asked Women
If you could access a targeted sustainable investment fund, what sustainability issues and challenges would you want it to address?
- Global warming and climate change remain the top priority, with 61% of respondents looking for investment funds to focus on this.
- The following 3 priorities include 1) sustainable and responsible supply chains (47%) 2) poverty and income inequality (36%) and 3) pollution (air, water and soil) (35%).
- Gender equality came in 5th at 31%, confirming our belief that gender-lens investing is instinctively important to female investors, but only part of the picture. Read more about this on Moxie Future’s founder’s blog, My Moxie Journey.
Where Next?
We know that there is much work to do to empower women as sustainable investors. We also know that the solutions are complex and multi-faceted, requiring partnerships with many different areas and players. Moxie Future is playing a big role in that, and we suggest ideas on how we can all move forward. It is also important to remember that while women are pioneering this movement, all investors can benefit from these changes—regardless of gender.
Your Feedback
We’d love to hear what you think about our research!