Ethical finance, including environmental, social, and governance (ESG), and impact-driven investment firms and FinTechs are facing a period of unique challenges and opportunities.
Firstly, we can’t ignore the unpredictability of the Trump administration and its impact on global financial markets.
Earlier in April, it took massive sell-offs in the $28 trillion U.S. Treasury Bonds market, before Trump paused a roll-out of punishing tariff regimes.
This caused the biggest single-day gains since World War II ended. Markets are calmer now, but the damage is done. Turbulence, including rate increases, is now factored into short- to mid-term market movements.
Why now is the perfect time to encourage more investment in ethical finance
Investors need to find safer havens for their investments as a way of de-risking portfolios, whilst maintaining healthier growth than stocks and bonds are generating.
For investors wanting to maintain ethical commitments, this could be the perfect opportunity to make more strategic, ethical investments.
How do you prove to them that your firm is trustworthy, truly ethically focused, and can generate a better risk-adjusted ROI than non-ethical funds?
One of the most effective ways is to create engaging content and distribute/promote it to reach your audience.
The goal of content-led marketing activities is to let investors know:
1) what you offer;
2) that you understand their pain points, and
3) that you are fully capable of providing a solution that will solve those investor pain points.
The trust element is huge for ethical investment firms and funds because investors are considering putting a great deal of their capital, time, and effort into your offer.
This is where content can play a powerful role in your marketing efforts.
In this article, we outline how ethical finance firms can compete more effectively compared to non-ESG-based funds and financial institutions using high-impact content marketing.
4 ways to use content marketing in ethical finance
Here are some of the best ways that ethical finance firms can implement or upgrade a content marketing campaign to have the impact you need.
- Brand building
At Uncommon, we are big believers in the power of brand building.
Research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute shows that brand building is a marathon, not a sprint.
Having a brand strategy makes it easier to stand out and get noticed in the long-term. If you’re just getting started, then it’s crucial to accept and get buy-in on this that brand building and marketing is a long-term, strategic investment, not a quick fix.
The value of your brand is an asset. The goal is to maximize the ROI of that asset.
The value of having a “brand” compared to simply marketing your company is financially quantifiable.
Since 2000, Interbrand has ranked the financial value of the world’s most valuable brands. In 25 years, Interbrand has featured 185 brands in that list, and yet, only 35 have stayed consistently in the table, with only 2 remaining in the top 10 every year: Microsoft and Coca-Cola.
One of the most interesting findings from Interbrand’s research is that:
“We see that a focus on operational efficiencies and short-term gains has cost the world’s most valuable brands $US 3.5 trillion in cumulative brand value since we started our study. This equates to approximately $200bn of lost revenue opportunity over the past 12 months.”
As a CMO, if you want CEO and CFO buy-in for brand building and marketing, this is the most effective way to frame the case for the investment:
- Reframe brand building as a capital investment. Like R&D or infrastructure, it compounds in value over time — and it protects against downturns.
- Show how long-term brand work reduces future acquisition costs, increases customer lifetime value, and improves pricing power. Those are numbers any boardroom cares about.
- Highlight the cost of doing nothing. A stagnant brand in a fast-moving market is a risk, not a saving.
Brand building vs. Sales
Above: Brand building as a long-term strategy vs. a sales-focused, short-term boost. One is cyclical, the other is more consistent and therefore generates a more predictable ROI over time.
- Make the case for ethical investments
There are numerous reasons for investors to make ethical investments:
- Supporting ESG initiatives;
- De-risking portfolios;
- Reduced volatility;
- Reduced tail risks;
- Better alpha generation;
- Improved Sharpe ratio;
- Accessing new growth opportunities;
- Fund-specific reasons.
An ESG report by Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) “found that a majority of investors (85%) reported that ESG leads to better returns, resilient portfolios, and enhanced fundamental analysis.”
In 2025, growth is expected to shift to Europe, Japan, Canada, and Australia, away from the U.S., whilst still ensuring forecasted growth of 3.5% this year.
One reason for this, according to Professor Amit Seru, co-director of the Corporate Governance Research Initiative, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is that investors are quickly returning to the fundamentals of ethical investments.
It’s not necessarily the green credentials; it’s about the portfolio-adjusted, de-risked returns.
Seru says that “investors are retreating to more traditional concepts of shareholder value creation. Investors focusing on the one or two main drivers of risk that have the potential to really drive stock price and influence outcomes.”
When making the case for ethical investments, the ROI value (see our next point) is going to be more useful moving forward.
At the same time, making the ethical and environmental case shouldn’t be overlooked. As Nordea found, the C02 savings from sustainable investing is 27X more impactful than making lifestyle changes. This is an impressive and impactful stat, and one that lands with their customers.
Ethical investments are better for shareholder value, the planet, people, and good corporate governance. With the right content strategy, you can make the case for all of the things your clients care about.
- Demonstrate the investment ROI vs. Big Finance
It’s brilliant to see that “Global ESG assets surpassed $30 trillion in 2022 and are on track to surpass $40 trillion by 2030”, according to the latest ESG report from Bloomberg Intelligence (BI).
However, we also need to recognize that this is only “25% of [the] projected” $128 trillion in AuM in the US alone that the top 500 asset management firms hold.
Thinking in those terms, it still makes non-ethical finance the default choice. Big finance still pulls in more inflows than other financial vehicles and products.
As the study cited below states, “far-reaching shifts of mainstream investors toward embracing sustainable investment practices remain rather slow”, because the default for many investors still isn’t ESG/ethical finance.
Increasing brand awareness and demonstrating the ROI of ethical finance vs. Big Finance is one of the problems that content can solve for ethical financial firms.
Numerous studies have proven that ESG funds perform just as well, if not better than, non-ESG funds.
A huge meta-analysis of 2200 research papers showed that returns from sustainable investing are 60% higher than traditional, unsustainable investments (Fried et al, ESG and financial performance, Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, 2015).
Ethical and ESG investments have a higher aggregate ROI for investors than oil, gas, weapons, and other harmful investments.
- Amplify the mere-exposure effect
One of the biggest challenges of brand building is the process of building brand awareness.
It takes time and effort to build the brand awareness you need. The kind of brand awareness that brings investors to you. No more going looking for them. That’s what content marketing can do for your brand.
The mere-exposure effect is what you’re aiming for. It’s a psychological effect that describes how the more we see something, the more we like it.
To benefit from this documented psychological phenomenon, you need investors to keep seeing your brand, website, messaging, and investment offerings.
For ethical investment firms, this means the more your audience sees your brand — your voice, your insights, your name woven into industry conversations — the more they’ll trust you. And when the time comes to invest, they’re much more likely to choose the name they already know.
This isn’t just about sticking a logo on every blog. It’s about consistently showing up with smart takes, credible content, and real clarity. The kind of thought leadership that builds recognition and relevance. We like to think of it in terms of earning trust.
If your brand becomes synonymous with sharp thinking, useful insights, and reliable signals in a noisy market — you’re more likely to be the name they remember when the next investing cycle begins.
You’re not just building a brand reputation, slowly and surely, you’re creating long-lasting memory links. And those links are what can convert your readers into long-term clients.
The Mere-exposure effect
Above: Familiarity is an essential part of building brand awareness, and the most effective way is to show up in front of your audience consistently. Content marketing is a key pillar of how your brand shows up consistently and builds trust with potential investors.
3 examples of high-impact content marketing in ethical finance
Numerous ethical finance brands are already setting an excellent example with the use of content in their marketing campaigns.
Take Generation, for example, a “pure-play sustainable investment manager”, with $35.6bn AuM, and a further $11.4bn of assets under supervision.
Since 2004, “Generation has played a pioneering role in the development of sustainable and environmental, social and governance investing.”
They go on to say that: “We seek to pursue our vision with urgency through our mission which is to deliver long-term, attractive, risk-adjusted investment returns and positive impact, and to advocate for the adoption of sustainable investing by the wider market.”
Al Gore even serves as Generation’s chairperson.
Generation infuses ethical commitments and strong financial fundamentals into the messaging of every report, article, social post, and video across every comms channel.
Above: Generation reinforces its messaging very well throughout its website and across every marketing channel.
Another example is Liontrust, one of the leading ethical investment firms in the UK with £24.7bn AuM as of January 2025.
Liontrust’s investment philosophy is: “The way our economy is developing is not optimal and can be vastly improved by reducing the negative impacts on the environment and inequality in society.”
In order to secure billions in investments, Liontrust shows how its funds outperform comparable ETF and other similarly structured investment vehicles.
Liontrust UK Ethical Fund 2 performance vs. MSCI UK fund performance
Above: Liontrust UK Ethical Fund 2, with £418 AuM, is outperforming an MSCI UK fund in every sector.
A third example is Nordea, a Nordic banking giant and one of the most ethical financial institutions in the world.
In 2025, Nordea was recognised as “among the top 15% of the world’s most sustainable banks. In 2024, Nordea’s Corporate Sustainability Assessment ESG score improved from 67 to 70.”
As they say: “At Nordea, sustainability remains at the core, influencing how we organise, operate and manage risks, in order to actively engage to drive the transition and capture growth opportunities.”
A look at their website, papers, commitments, and accountable actions shows customers that Nordea is making great strides towards operating as a 100% sustainable bank, from the investments it makes to being a net-zero organization.
Above: Nordea makes its case time and again about its mission and why, as an ethical financial service provider, it’s making a positive impact on the planet, for people, and still making a profit and creating shareholder value.
Nordea is a great example of messaging and positioning for any bank or investment firm that’s serious about sustainability. Everything from the data-backed reports to the way the message is communicated supports Nordea’s claims.
Key takeaways: Content in ethical finance
As we can see, content marketing can play a powerful role in communicating your value proposition, advantages of investing, and the strength of your brand and investment funds.
Now is the time to lean into your advantages. With investors looking for safe, risk-adjusted returns and more stable portfolios (and ones that make a bigger impact for the sake of our planet), ethical finance is the way forward.
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We want to support as many ESG, impact-driven, & ethical finance companies as we can.
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Sounds interesting? Email us at: admin@fintechcontent.marketing and we will get started for you.