To help more people invest well. So they can live well.
Overview
Clients and their interests are a key consideration in everything that we do. Our commitment to delivering valuable propositions, exceptional service, and best practices underpins both our success and our responsibility as a trusted partner.
On this page
Progress in 2025
Client service, experience, and product offering
Clients are at the heart of our strategy and their interests guide everything we do. We focus on delivering meaningful value and exceptional service, always guided by our commitment to acting responsibly and building deep and meaningful relationships. Every decision is shaped by our duty to put clients’ interests first, ensuring we help them invest well for a better future.
Our Client Office brings together six functions that span the entire client lifecycle – from insights and proposition development to marketing, brand, communications, and colleague advocacy – ensuring a unified, client‑focused approach. Designed as a catalyst for organic growth, this structure reflects feedback from across the business, highlighting opportunities to enhance strategies based on insights, differentiate our brand, and boost colleague engagement.
Responsible marketing
We uphold the highest standards for our marketing, focusing on responsible selling practices and personalised financial advice. Our approach adheres to FCA guidelines and integrates Consumer Duty principles to ensure fair and transparent client outcomes and mirrors our long‑established culture of always putting our clients first. We assess our clients’ unique circumstances, needs, and values before recommending products, ensuring our services and products align with our clients’ best interests.
In 2025, Rathbones experts produced influential thought leadership, including quarterly market analyses, webinars, videos, and deep‑dive reports. The reports examined themes such as energy and finance, geopolitics, climate tipping points, behavioural finance, and global economic volatility, offering timely insights to help investors navigate an uncertain landscape. These were made available to colleagues via Seismic, our internal content management platform, published online, and shared with clients where relevant.
Responsible investment
As a wealth manager, we are responsible for investing on our clients’ behalf to help them achieve their long‑term goals. We recognise that environmental, social, and financial stability are interconnected, and that rigorous management of these factors is in our clients’ interests.
Our responsible investment policy guides our investment process and stewardship approach, and considers four key principles: ESG integration, engagement with consequences, voting with purpose, and transparency.
We prioritise engagement where we can help make a difference in addressing systemic ESG challenges, and are prepared to escalate our engagement activity or reduce our holdings in companies that continue to present significant risks in these areas.
Notes:
- RIM clients sub £5 million surveyed
- 2023 and 2024 data excludes IW&I RIM clients sub £5 million surveyed
- The Benchmark is the average score of the eight firms who participated in the 2025 Alpha client survey. It is also the average from historic, NMG and AON benchmark client surveys
- Sustainability focused is a Sustainability Disclosure Requirements label
Our investment targets
The Responsible Investment Committee oversees our responsible investment approach, and progress towards the investment aspects of our Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) aligned near‑term target.
Scope 3 asset class level targets
Rathbones Group Plc near‑term targets were set based on our 2023 investment emissions footprint. Using the portfolio coverage methodology, in‑scope FUMA includes equity, fixed income, structured products, collectives and passive funds. See the diagram on the righthand side of the page for our targets.
Our progress
As of 2025, 26% of in‑scope FUMA had validated targets. This is up from 21% in 2023 and 24% in 2024. Progress has been driven by a combination of existing holdings moving from commitment to validated targets, increased investment in companies with targets, and new investments in issuers with validated targets.
Transition Plan
We are committed to reaching net zero1 emissions by 2050 or sooner, and limiting warming to close to 1.5°C in line with the goal of the Paris Agreement. Our focus in 2025 was to develop a Climate Transition Plan that sets out how we will meet our targets and align with a low‑carbon, climate‑resilient economy. Our plan, which will be finalised and published in 2026, will be aligned to UK Transition Plan Taskforce guidance.
The infographic opposite summarises the investment aspects of our SBTI‑aligned near‑term targets. This includes our implementation priorities, which centre on three pillars: engagement and voting, integration and Transparency. These pillars guide our actions across the short term (to 2030), medium term (to 2035) and long term (to 2040), supporting our goal to reach net zero by 2050 while safeguarding the long‑term value of our clients’ portfolios.
Our investment targets2
55%
of in-scope3 FUMA to have validated science-based targets
by 2030
77%
of in-scope3 FUMA to have validated science-based targets by 2035
by 2035
100%
of in-scope3 FUMA to have validated science-based targets
by 2040
Net zero
by 2050
Our pillars
Engagement and voting
Activities:
- Engage investee companies, third-party funds, clients, industry and government
- Use proxy voting rights with investees
Integration
Integrate net zero ambition into:
- Investment processes
- Clients suitability assessments
- Product offerings
- Training and education
Transparency
Increase transparency through:
- Increasing visibility within third-party funds
- Sharing personalised climate reports with clients
- Statements following inaction
Our progress
26%
of in-scope3 FUMA have validated SBTi targets
2024: 24%
Notes:
- Rathbones Group Plc defines net zero as balancing the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by absorbing or avoiding an equal amount.
- Targets are set against a 2023 base year
- In-scope: equity, bonds, fixed income, structured products, collectives and passive funds.
More on how we help clients
Keeping clients safe
Everyone is susceptible. Remember a few warning signs to help protect yourself.
The other pillars of our responsible business framework
Governance
Enhancing our governance through embedding privacy, human rights, nature and climate risk considerations in our decision-making process.