In the last 4 years global sustainable assets have increased from 5% of total global assets to over 10%. And, according to research by Bloomberg, will hit $53 trillion or 33% by 2025. More good news is found in research by Charles Stanley showing out performance by Sustainable Responsible Investment funds compared to non-SRI funds between 2015-2020. But there are clouds on the horizon:
Tariq Fancy, former Head of Blackrock’s Sustainable Investing said that ESG investing “a dangerous placebo” and used this analogy to describe the situation in ESG investing, “Players have collectively engaged in forms of dirty play for decades because it scores points and wins games.”
The concerns center on the lack of regulation, the different methodologies and potential mismatch between investors’ expectations and actual ESG compliance or sustainability of many of these products.
At Boundary we support as much as growth in the sector as possible because we fundamentally believe capital is an unbelievably powerful agent of change but we do also acknowledge that the future of sustainable investment must be based on solid objective methodologies that can be easily matched up to investors’ expectations and motivations.
To that end, we have been conducting our own research into these key topics and part of this is a survey. The link is below and it takes less than 2 minutes to complete. We will be planting a tree for every completed survey and presenting the aggregated, anonymized findings back to those who participated in the survey. Also, later this month we will be hosting a webinar with the results of our research, and exploring the theme “50 Shades of Green”. The 30 minute presentation by our Managing Partner Dan Somers will provide a guide to investors and advisors on how navigate this maze of different names and standards and find outcomes that match their needs.