Ecovest
Every year, 330m tonnes of Carbon Emissions are financed by UK's pension industry!
The aim was to redirect investments from unsustainable companies like oil and fuel to those which are shaping a greener future through their initiatives.
This is achieved by empowering employers to make a meaningful impact on their employees, their ESG brand value, and the planet by choosing greener default pension schemes through our B2B Service Proposition- Ecovest.
project associations
Timeline
Oct 2023- Feb 2024
Project category
Service Design | Business Proposition
MY CONTRIBUTION (GROUP OF 5)
Ideating Service Directions
Leading User Interviews
Led the design of the Digital Product
User Testing with Employers
Green Pensions
ESG Ratings
Climate Change
Sustainable Finance
we started by asking
What if we could have environmentally friendly funds as a default for workplace pensions?
vision
To drive maximum investments into sustainable companies to support climate action.
value proposition
Ecovest helps -
Drive better returns & positive impact on climate
Simplify Pension Fund Management
Enhance Employee Engagement with their Pensions
strategy
We gather default fund information from various pension providers, assess their green score, and offer a tailored list of providers to employers. This helps HR and sustainability managers make better decisions when selecting a pension provider and schemes.
theory of change
intended impact
Even if 1% of the SME's choose to switch to Green Pensions, we could have around 55m invested towards sustainability every year.
In case you're short on time, the following video provides an overview of the project! (Video Created & Edited by me on Adobe After Effects)
background & problem
In the UK, employers are mandated to enrol their employees into Pension Schemes. The default pension schemes are given by the pension providers who invest the money into the equity market.
opportunity identification
We conducted Desk Research to understand the current workplace pension schemes; Expert Interviews with 1 trustee & Aegon (Pension Provider) to decode the Stakeholder Ecosystem and Primary Interviews with 2 Employers & 6 Employees to understand their engagement with Pensions.
decoding the current journey of an employee
We conducted guerrilla interviews with corporate workers in a business district and interviewed 6 pension holders in the UK and further mapped out the journey of an employee.
lack of engagement with pensions
This helped us understand the reasons for lack of engagement:
Unawareness
Low Pension Knowledge
Lack of Future Visualisation
Ineffective pension communications
Over 90% of the Employees stick to their Default Pension Funds
how can we create the maximum impact?
After concluding the lack of engagement of employees, we assessed the pension ecosystem to understand which other stakeholders can we nudge in order to create more impact and we asked the following questions:
Who holds immediate power to drive pension investments into sustainability?
What are people’s rights w.r.t their pensions?
Do people need to become pension experts?
Why were pensions designed to be passive?
assessing the stakeholder ecosystem
Employers first point of contact for employees for pension related activities
It is Employer's fiduciary duty to pick a fund which is in the best interest of the employees
pivoting directions & overcoming challenges
target audience persona
Hence, we narrowed down on Employers as our target persona and mapped out their journey of finding the right pension providers to enrolling their employees in a default scheme and then finally taking care of ongoing engagement to find hiddent pain points.
3 key insights
Lack of knowledge and a steep learning curve contribute to employees’ disengagement with their pensions, leading them to adhere to default pension funds
However it is essential for them to understand the influence of their pensions on both their retirement and the planet
Auto-enrolling employees in pensions was implemented to encourage passive savings, ensuring financial security for retirement.
To what level do employees need to engage with their pensions?
Employers select pension funds, possessing the ability to opt for schemes that benefit both the planet and their workforce.
They have to pick schemes that are in best interest of their employees and align with their financial constraints
Hence,
How might we encourage employers to adopt eco-friendly pension choices as the default for their employees, fostering engagement in pension decisions and creating a positive impact on the planet?
service proposition
The actionable insights derived from research helped us define our service offerings which would empower employers to make sustainable pension choices.
Ecovest is a B2B service, which compares, analyses and curates list of default funds offered by various pension providers. These funds fit the criteria of sustainability and align with the values of the companies and their employees.
systemic impact
For a service to be impactful, it is crucial to understand the impact it would have on various stakeholders while identifying key enablers and barriers to the service. Hence, we mapped out the value exchange when Ecovest comes into picture.
I took the lead in designing the digital product for Ecovest along with 1 other team member. (Video Created & Edited by me on Adobe After Effects)
testing & refining
We tested our service with employers of SMEs who would be our potential customers to understand their level of willingness and restrictions in adopting the service. In addition we also tested our offerings with Pension Providers like Aegon to understand how we can strengthen our value proposition for different stakeholders.
employers' feedback
On testing our prototype with SME business owners and running a Survey through CIPD we understood employer’s reservations in terms of green investing and reasons why they may not adopt a service like Ecovest. Based on the conclusion we refined our service and its business model.
‘If we can boost our credibility by building the right partnerships, then we can foster trust among our customers’
participatory workshop with aegon
In order to build these partnerships with industry players, we conducted a participatory workshop with Aegon who are leading pension providers in the UK. The aim was to understand what kind of a value exchange can be established with them so that we stand as an independent and unbiased service but are still backed up by leading players.
Their team consisted of:
A sustainability expert
Service Designers
UX Designers and Researchers
If we can boost our credibility by building the right partnerships, then we can foster trust amongst our customers
business model
We developed a Go-to-Market strategy with key customers to understand how we can strongly enter the market and position ourselves amongst current players.
target market & competitive advantage
Impact at Scale
Ecovest encourages employers to choose eco-friendly pension choices while raising awareness, thus even one employer's switch makes a large impact.
Unique Target Market Segment
We offer services to SME's (consisting of 99.9% UK's private sector) as their size and budget make them incompatible to avail services of larger pension providers and EBCs.
Value to Organisations
Green pensions reduce carbon footprint, enhance brand reputation , improve materiality assessment and enhance employee retention.
IDEAL CUSTOMERS & partnerships
B-Corps, Sustainable Charities
Go To Market: B.Corps and other small scale sustainable organisations and charities. The potential impact of their pension-related carbon footprint on their brand is significant
Partnerships with initiatives like MakeMyMoneyMatter and B Lab Global-
Reduce resistance to change and help in penetrating the market.
Partnerships with reputed Pension Providers-
Help Employers in trusting the authenticity of the service
REVENUE STREAMS
takeaways
Embarking on my first end-to-end service design project, I not only honed my Design Practice but also leveraged invaluable industry partnerships, enabling us to iteratively refine our concept into a launch-ready solution that pushed the boundaries of academic constraints.
Key Learnings
Get in touch
Importance of Zooming Out
It is crucial to take a step back and look at the overarching problem time & again to ensure that your solution is actually solving the problem at hand.
Critical Assessment of Impact
I understood the importance of assessing the comprehensive impact of design choices on the entire stakeholder ecosystem, not solely on end users, learning to incorporate them in value exchanges rather than excluding them.
Having the right customer base is key to launching a service
Initial tests with employers revealed that not all prioritise sustainability. Targeting B-corps for our launch would be advantageous as they are already on this mission. This would raise awareness and we can expand to others.
Understanding the limitations of my role as Service Designer
As service designers, we may encounter barriers beyond our control. In our case, it was the performance of green funds, which we couldn't guarantee despite extensive research.
achievements
Top 20: Terra Carta-Sustainability Market Initiatives!
Ecovest was selected amongst the top 4 projects in the Service Design Studio and was supported by Aegon to enter the prestigious Terra Carta Competition.
Ecovest was amongst the top 20 projects in this competition.
Let's get Designing !
ayushi.saxena@network.rca.ac.uk
