Sustainable and responsible investment assets have risen by almost a quarter in the past two years in the US and now account for more than 11 percent of all professionally managed assets in the country, according to a report by the US SIF Foundation.
The 2012 Report on Sustainable and Responsible Investing Trends in the United States shows that assets held by individuals, investment companies, money managers and other institutions that practice SRI rose 22 percent since 2010 to the current $3.74 tn.
That accounts for 11.23 percent of the total $33.3 tn in investment assets held in the country, according to US SIF.
‘The 2012 trends report demonstrates that we are moving closer to a sustainable and equitable economy,’ says US SIF CEO Lisa Woll in a statement.
‘From the growth in mutual funds that consider ESG criteria and increased investment in community development banks and credit unions to increasingly large votes on shareholder proposals and the availability of sustainable investment options across asset classes, SRI strategies are on the rise in the United States.’
About $3.31 tn in assets held under SRI criteria was in the form of US-domiciled assets held by 443 institutional investors, 272 money managers and more than 1,000 community investing institutions that ‘select or analyze their portfolios using ESG criteria,’ US SIF said. It also counted 200 institutional investors or money managers that ‘filed or co-filed through shareholder resolutions on ESG issues from 2010 to 2012.’
Total assets held by institutional investors who have invested using criteria related to climate change has increased by 43 percent since 2010 to the current $636 bn, according to the US SIF survey of some 1,100 investment management firms and institutional asset owners between April and July of this year.
The report also shows that total net assets of mutual funds that invest using environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria doubled in the past two years, reaching the current level of $641 bn.
At the same time, assets held by alternative investments funds that use ESG criteria increased 250 percent to $132 bn.
The study also finds that ‘concerns about business ties to repressive or terrorist regimes, other country-specific criteria and interest in corporate governance are the top issues for sustainable and responsible institutional asset owners’.
