Ethical investing, socially responsible investing or ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) investing is nothing new. However, what is new is that investing in this way used to mean compromising performance. Now this is no longer the case.
Growing concerns and awareness of long-term issues such as climate change, demographic changes and inequality, have led many people to consider more closely where they invest their money and the impact it could be having.
According to the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA), over $22 trillion of assets were managed under responsible investment strategies globally in 2016, up 25% from two years before, and independently that is reported to have increased by more than a third since 2016 and now accounts for assets worth more than $30 trillion.
The pandemic has also accelerated our focus on the environment and our impact on the planet.
In the early days of ethical investing the methodology for selecting eligible investments was to screen out certain companies that were deemed unethical, such as oil or tobacco companies. The impact of this was to omit investing in some major opportunities and industries and the evidence was that it did indeed impact on performance and therefore ethical funds in the retail markets never really took off to any great extent. In other words, all else being equal, investors would invest ethically – but not if they had to pay for it.
However recently, MSCI Research has launched a whole suite of ESG Indexes and a rating service that assesses thousands of data points of 6,800 companies across 37 ESG Key Issues 10 Themes and the three Pillars, Environmental, Social and governance. Companies are then rated on a AAA-CCC scale relative to the standards and performance of their industry peers. The interesting thing is that there is now evidence to suggest that contrary to past evidence that ethical investing compromises performance, the opposite is now true and ESG rated funds outperform. Not only that but the higher that funds are rated, the greater is the outperformance.
This enhanced performance and the changing mood within society would certainly indicate that the growth we’ve seen in ESG investing, is going to continue unabated.
This is not to say that ‘unethical’ investing and ‘socially irresponsible’ practises are going to be wiped out quickly, worldwide. But working together on this will make small but significant changes.
The global economy has changed irreversibly as a result of the pandemic and it will continue to evolve, with an increasing emphasis on greener and more efficient companies and industries as areas of future growth.
We can only play our part in creating a better world for future generations, where we can.
A version of this article was originally featured on Novia IQ’s website.