The Global Risks Alliance (GRA)
Research on markets is not advice, and the line between them is set by law. Trustees, fund boards and investment managers owe duties of loyalty, prudence and care to beneficiaries, and the law of each jurisdiction says what they may weigh, including climate and nature risk. This page sets out where responsible research ends and regulated advice begins, how fiduciary duty is read for long-horizon risk, and why Asset Management Nexus stays on the research side of that line.
GRA · Established · service level R0
Fiduciary duty is the set of legal duties of loyalty, prudence and care that trustees, fund boards and managers owe to beneficiaries. The law of each jurisdiction says what they may weigh, including financially material climate risk, and where research becomes regulated investment advice. Asset Management Nexus publishes research, never advice.
For fiduciary boundaries, in GRA's spatial-finance reading, the map opens on population density and night lights with built-up and settlement extent from NASA GIBS, framed on North America; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For fiduciary boundaries, in GRA's spatial-finance reading, the map opens on population density and night lights with built-up and settlement extent from NASA GIBS, framed on North America; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
Layers and dates
Responsible research versus advice. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Loyalty requires acting in beneficiaries' interests; prudence requires a process a careful expert would follow. Financially material risks, including climate and nature, fall within prudence where they bear on risk and return.
A personal recommendation about a specific investment, given to a person or presented as suitable for them, is regulated advice in most jurisdictions. General research about a field, without a recommendation, is not.
Jurisdictions differ on whether non-financial objectives may be pursued, and US rules for private-sector pension plans have changed between administrations. Fiduciaries document whether a factor is weighed for risk and return or for another purpose.
Research can be compromised by commercial interest, sponsorship or selective presentation. Standards for objectivity and conflict disclosure protect readers from mistaking promotion for analysis.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Duty of prudence | The obligation to invest with the care, skill and diligence a prudent person would use. |
| Investment advice | A personal recommendation on investments, a regulated activity in most jurisdictions. |
| Greenwashing | Misleading claims about the sustainability of a product, fund or firm. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Investment policies addressing financially material sustainability risk | share of surveyed asset owners | annual | Asset owner surveys and published policies | REPORTED |
| Documented consideration of climate risk in committee records | presence by review cycle | per review | Trustee and board records | DECLARED |
| Conflict of interest disclosure in published research | share of research items with disclosure | per publication | Research publications | REPORTED |
| Enforcement actions on misleading sustainability claims | count of actions | annual | Regulator enforcement records | OFFICIAL |
| Beneficiary preference surveys conducted | count by scheme | annual | Scheme disclosures | DECLARED |
| Sustainability preferences recorded in suitability assessments | share of advisory files reviewed | per supervisory review | Supervisory reviews under MiFID II | OFFICIAL |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| A Legal Framework for Impact (PRI, UNEP FI and The Generation Foundation) | Analysis of investors' legal scope to pursue sustainability impact across jurisdictions | Free to read, attribution |
| Law Commission of England and Wales report on fiduciary duties of investment intermediaries | Analysis of how financial and non-financial factors may be weighed by pension trustees | Open Government Licence |
| US Department of Labor rulemaking records on ERISA investment duties | Rules and guidance on weighing risk and return factors in plan investments | Public domain |
| ESMA guidelines on MiFID II suitability requirements | How sustainability preferences enter suitability assessments | Free reuse, attribution |
| SEC enforcement actions | Cases on misleading sustainability, marketing and research claims | Public domain |
| FCA policy statements on sustainability disclosure requirements and the anti-greenwashing rule | UK rules on sustainability labels, naming, marketing and claims | Free to read, FCA terms |
Asset Management Nexus prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Pension trustees and fund boards | How financially material climate and nature risks are documented within their duty of prudence | Jurisdictional comparisons of fiduciary interpretation and of process standards |
| Securities and conduct regulators | Where the boundary between general research and regulated advice lies for digital publications | Examples of content structure, disclaimers and recommendation language |
| Investment consultants and authorised advisers | How clients' sustainability preferences enter suitability assessments | Regulatory guidance on suitability and preferences, and documentation practice |
| Professional bodies such as CFA Institute | How standards of objectivity and conflict disclosure apply to sustainability research | Research conflict disclosures and enforcement records on misleading claims |
Fiduciary duty requires decision-makers to act prudently and loyally for beneficiaries. Legal interpretations of how this applies to long-horizon risks, such as climate change, differ between jurisdictions and have evolved. Many authorities now regard material financial risks, including climate risks, as relevant to prudent decisions, while views differ on non-financial goals.
Investment advice is regulated in most jurisdictions. Research that recommends particular securities or strategies to particular investors may fall within that regulation. General research on methods and risks typically does not, but the line depends on content and context.
Industry collaboration raises competition-law questions. Sharing information or agreeing on actions among competitors can harm competition. Precompetitive research on shared methods is designed to avoid this, under written safeguards.
Publishing methods, evidence and limits, never recommendations to specific investors.
No agreements on investment, voting or pricing decisions among participants.
Meetings under GRA's competition-law safeguards, designed and set out in a written policy that counsel reviews before membership opens.
Declaration of relevant interests by contributors and separation of sponsors from content.
Legal questions about fiduciary duty in a specific case belong with each institution's legal advisers.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.