Interactive Brokers ESG manager Eddy Soffer traces how values-aligned investing went from an idea colleagues dismissed to a mainstream priority, accelerated by the pandemic and global events. He walks through the firm's Impact app, which lets investors build personalized ESG portfolios, buy carbon offsets, give to aligned charities, and learn through built-in ESG investing courses.
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Eddy Soffer: I am the ESG manager at Interactive Brokers, and I joined the firm back in December of 2019, and the mandate was to start our team. I worked very closely with our director, Will, and it's been an incredible journey. We've been able to accomplish quite a bit, and that relates to firm wide initiatives as well of the launch of award winning sustainable trading products.
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Eddy Soffer: My passion for sustainability developed 8 or 9 years ago, back in the day, where no one even knew what ESG stands for. But I'm very passionate about it. It's something that I try to do in my personal life and live by the standards. Obviously, I'm not perfect, but I do feel that we're at a time where we have to start looking.
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Eddy Soffer: What are our planet looking more society looking more as how we can help one another?
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Eddy Soffer: Back in the day, nine years ago, where just people didn't really believe in this very much and those that did had to fight the fight. And that was the case for me as well. So bringing this to my prior firm, discussing it with colleagues, they would say like, why are you bringing a solution to a problem that doesn't exist?
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Eddy Soffer: You know, we're doing just fine without it. How do you know that this is the future? Why should we listen? Why is it important? You know, you can just give donations. Look at the feature. Why involvement in the business sector? So I think that was the biggest challenge that that I had faced. It is one that I turned into an opportunity, frankly, because I firmly and partially believed that it was a future.
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Eddy Soffer: And I kind of sounded the alarm like 8 or 9 years ago saying, this is coming. And I'm very happy that that we're here today, because not just from a personal itself is going to be, but it really is better for all of us. And I believe that seeing what's going on in the world today accelerates the need for sustainability even more.
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Eddy Soffer: The pandemic definitely brought it up to to the surface and also world events with Ukraine and everything that's happening. It's also sort of leading us to to ask ourselves, you know, how we behaving towards one another? Are we treating each other with respect? How can we make that a part of our daily lives, including our work life?
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Eddy Soffer: Products and strategies and ideas that have been embraced by the marketplace? I really believe that some of the the things that we're doing are helping our investors, especially millennials and Generation Z. So we launched an app called impact back in November, and we have won a number of awards for the app itself. We brought sustainability in a very easy way to everyone.
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Eddy Soffer: It allows users to invest in a customized way in a personalized journey. The carbon offset is something that we recently introduced that we're very excited about. It aligns with the overall mission of the app, which is a sustainable app. So this feature will allow you to go in and offset the amounts that you'd like to based on your activities.
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Eddy Soffer: So you put in an actual dollar amount or actually a tonne amount, right, based on your research. And then what you what you're able to do is buy carbon credits to offset that amount of emissions that you put into the app. So what you're doing, in essence, is those carbon credits are being used for sustainable practices and reducing emissions at the same time.
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Eddy Soffer: It also allows you to give back to communities. Right. So it's not just for you to invest in companies that are making a difference and what you care about most, but also for you to make an impact to your dollar with charities that also align with your values. So this whole personalized, customized approach is something that I'm very proud of, and I can't wait to see how it continues to succeed.
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Eddy Soffer: And the app has a wealth of information in terms of research, in terms of even without you starting to trade at all, you can learn that way. We also partner up with our sister company, Interactive Advisors, that also has portfolios. We also have courses, ESG investing courses, 101 courses that people can go and take a look at. Our website is impact that Interactive Brokers.
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Eddy Soffer: Com. There is a whole tab code learn where we can actually walk investors through the one on ones like what is impact investing, what is ESG investing, what is sustainable investing? We also offer learning modules. It takes you through this journey up until today, of looking at how ESG has been integrated into the financial community and into investment products.
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Eddy Soffer: The time is now. Honestly, I've never seen sustainability and ESG be so on top of everything as it is today. And I'm excited because it's almost like a wake up call for all of us to come together and act for the betterment of the planet, for the betterment of society, and for the betterment of the humankind.