New Report: Sustainable Investments Grow by 25 percent Worldwide from 2014-16

Globally, sustainable investment assets have increased in value by 25 percent since 2014.

According to the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance’s Global Sustainable Investment Review 2016, “there are now $22.89 trillion of assets being professionally managed under responsible investment strategies.”

The sustainable investment market has grown fastest in Japan during this two-year span, with Australia/New Zealand and Canada also showing particularly rapid growth.

Europe experienced 12 percent growth from 2014-16 and has a total globally sustainable asset base of $12.04 trillion. In the U.S., Impact Economy investing is up 33 percent in the time span to $8.72 trillion. Canada experienced a 49 percent increase to $1.09 billion.

The report defines sustainable investing as “an investment approach that considers environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in portfolio selection and management…. Sustainable investment encompasses the following activities and strategies:

• Negative/exclusionary screening
• Positive/best-in-class screening
• Norms-based screening
• Integration of ESG factors
• Sustainability themed investing
• Impact/community investing and
• Corporate engagement and shareholder action.”