The Origins of Socially Responsible and Sustainable Investing

One of the fastest growing areas in investing today is socially responsible investing (SRI) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing.  The growth in SRI and ESG has not just been driven by the heightened desire of individual investors to align social and environmental values with portfolios, but also by the realization that ESG metrics can be a valuable gauge of risk and can drive investment performance. It may be surprising to some that SRI has been around for decades, and ESG arrived in the mid-2000s. Inside this research paper published in The Journal of Impact and ESG Investing, “From SRI to ESG: The Origins of Socially Responsible and Sustainable Investing,” Bailard’s own Blaine Townsend, CIMC®, CIMA®, explores the history of SRI and ESG investing.

Inside, you’ll learn:

• How the history of SRI and ESG investing has roots not only faith-based investing but also in the civil rights, antiwar, and environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s;
• How investment risks posed by climate change and poor corporate governance were a large catalyst to ESG investing;
• How ESG data is now much more widely available than even a decade ago, making ESG investing much more viable; and
• The impact of SRI and ESG on investment returns.