Sugi is Here to Make your Investments Greener

This week saw the launch of Sugi, an app enabling users to check the carbon impact of their investments.

What is Sugi

Sugi is the first platform in the UK allowing users to check the carbon impact of their investments. It allows them to compare with industry benchmarks with the goal of building a greener portfolio more aligned with their ethical values. Sugi’s founder is Josh Gregory who boasts a 10-year career in investment funds, green finance and conservation. From his experience, Gregory recognised a lack of clarity surrounding green investing, particularly within retail investment. Thus, he created Sugi.

User-Friendly Platform

The app targets retail investors and offers a free and straight-forward approach. Unlike ESG ratings, typically complex to use and targeted at experienced investors and asset managers, Sugi shows comprehensive benchmarks. It works with absolute numbers, presenting users the annual carbon impact of each investment alongside an industry average and carbon data for similar investments in the market.

Volume of Data

The app displays impact data for over 15,000 listed equities – 95% of the listed equities market. Additionally, it shows over 3,500 exchange traded funds (ETFs) and certain actively managed funds.

How Does it Work

Users link their investment portfolios, which can include ISAs and SIPPs, to Sugi via Moneyhub’s Open Finance API, enabling them to access personalised impact data. Moneyhub, a market-leading Open Finance data, intelligence and payments platform, connects to more than 80 online investment platforms, covering the majority of the UK market. Moneyhub’s Open Finance data and intelligence API powers the app. This gives users access to the most comprehensive financial data connections on the market.

Next Steps

Sugi’s CEO and Founder, Josh Gregory highlights the positive impact of COVID for accelerating awareness and demand for green investment. Although there is definitely a demand (54% of UK investors looking for positive impact investments), a lot of this is currently lip service.

He explains, “the reasons for this vary. Sustainable investing is full of jargon and investors are rightly concerned about greenwashing. Another problem is ESG ratings: they’re meant to simplify complex issues but are themselves very confusing – even for experienced retail investors. All of this ultimately stops more people getting involved.

“By providing users with simple, objective data, Sugi aims to make green investing easier, understandable and more accessible for everyone.”

Sugi has plans to introduce a wider range of funds and more environmental data in the coming months.