Mindful Money awards entries delight organisers

Barry Coates.

Mindful Money founder and chief executive Barry Coates says he's thrilled by the number of entries after getting off to a slow start, with the bulk of the entries coming in late last week.

Coates says a total of 48 entries were received over the seven categories.

"We were initially getting a bit worried about the slow response...but by the end of it, we were very pleased with the quality of all of those responses."

He says over the next two weeks his panel of independent expert judges would go through the entries and produce a shortlist of finalists by the end of May.

"There are three or four judges in every category," says Coates.

"They are independent and none of them has a commercial conflict of interest with any of the entries in their categories.

"We've been quite clear about getting judges who know about the categories they are judging - they are all independent and highly skilled and they will meet over the next two weeks to go through those entries to find our finalists."

The awards will be held alongside the first Ethical Investment conference and will be hosted by popular comedian Te Radar at Generator@GridAKL on June 29.

Coates says ticket sales for the awards and conference are tracking well with about half sold already.

"We would encourage people who are interested in coming not to wait too long to get their tickets and we're hoping to sell out and have a full house."

The conference will feature keynote addresses by Adrian Orr, Governor of the Reserve Bank, drawing on his leadership in responsible investment and climate change at the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and the Reserve Bank.

A second keynote address will be made by Minister for Climate Change James Shaw who will put the urgency of action on climate finance in the context of the government’s climate strategy.

The conference panel discussion features Dr Rod Carr, chairperson of the Climate Change Commission, Bridget Coates, co-chairperson of the Centre for Sustainable Finance, Erica Finney, executive director of 350 Aotearoa and leading researcher and journalist Rod Oram.

Coates says Mindful Money has secured generous support for the conference, including Generate KiwiSaver and Mint Asset Management as the leading sponsors of the event.

Mindful Money is also grateful for the support of Devon Funds, Iain Rennie Consulting, Mercer Financial Services, Moneyworks and Trustees Executors, and Good Returns, media partner for the awards.

Award categories and entries:

Best Ethical KiwiSaver Fund Provider - 7 entries
Best Ethical Retail Investment Fund Provider - 10 entries
Best New Ethical Fund 2021 - 7 entries
Best Impact Investment Fund - 8 entries
Most Effective Investment Fund for Climate Action - 3 entries
Best Ethical Financial Adviser - 6 entries
Best Media Reporting on Ethical Investing - 7 entries

To register for the awards ceremony and conference, go to https://mindfulmoney.nz