FTAdviser Podcast

Many investors assume ESG-labelled funds automatically exclude companies connected to genocide, apartheid, war crimes or crimes against humanity. However, a 2025 OECD review of more than 2,000 ESG metrics across eight major rating products found human rights indicators were absent from some products, while 68 per cent of metrics relied on company self-reporting. Joining this episode of FT Adviser Margin Notes to unpick some of this tangled sustainable mess is Mike Head. He was one of the first ethical financial planners, and is now senior adviser at The Justice Company.

Advisers are increasingly looking beyond headline charges when selecting pension providers. In this episode of the FT Adviser podcast deputy news editor Sonia Rach chats to Amyr Rocha Lima, managing director at Strategic Wealth Partners, and Max Gist, head of business development at The People’s Pension, about the latest trends in provider selection.

In this episode of Margin Notes, FT Adviser speaks with Anesu Ngwenya, who was doing work experience with the FT Group over the summer. Having graduated with a specialism in data journalism, Ngwenya has come to appreciate the benefits of presenting data in a compelling and visually appealing way, as well as understanding the risks of not getting data right — whether that’s the way it is compiled, curated or controlled. In this podcast, she outlined some of the risks and opportunities that journalists and financial services professionals alike will encounter when it comes to data. 

This episode of Margin Notes looks at the risk affecting young people in Britain today - a double risk, if you like - of rising youth unemployment and low financial resilience among school and college leavers. When these two risks combine, what is the likely outcome for young people? FT Adviser editor Simoney Kyriakou talks to Lucy McIlroy, a philosophy and language student at Exeter University who has also been doing work experience on FT Adviser. 

Authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights and dire environmental practices have been abusing the UN sustainable development goals to secure foreign direct investment.This is the claim made by the Human Rights Foundation after years of research into some of the least democratic regimes where, despite known issues, foreign investment has been growing.On this latest Margin Notes podcast, one of the report’s authors, Sergei Korotkov, an international legal associate with the Human Rights Foundation, talks about why it should matter to investors that these emerging markets countries are finding loopholes or paying mere lip service to sustainability.  

Being an entrepreneur is always a risky business but for millions of self-employed people in Britain, owning their own business is not just a revenue stream but a life goal. But what happens when the money runs out? This is a question that is relevant not just to small businesses but also to large ones. How can owners mitigate these risks, or is insolvency the only solution? Joining us on this episode is licensed insolvency practitioner Julie Palmer, managing partner for the south-west region at BTG.