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.”

Morgan Stanley On Investing In Sustainability...

Lower volatility, competitive returns and the potential to make a positive change in the world. A new report by Morgan Stanley's Institute for Sustainable Investing finds that socially conscious investors might benefit financially from their focus on social or environmental factors.

The report surveyed 10,000 equity mutual funds over the last seven years that focus on sustainable investing approaches. Researchers found these mutual funds, as a group, tended to meet or exceed the median returns of their traditional counterparts. The findings are significant because they highlight the depth, breadth, and quality of sustainable investing options in the public markets .

Mark Newberg is the Director of Impact Strategies for Womble Carlyle and he believes this new study reflects significant advancement within the Impact Economy.

“This report shows the continuation of a trend we've seen in recent years, as the options for quality impact investment expand, and the analytic rationale for impact in corporate decision-making has become increasingly compelling” he said.