Sustainable investment has been given a boost with the finding investors who are concerned about lower returns are in a minority.
Fund manager Schroders surveyed 22,000 investors from 30 countries and found “only a quarter” of people globally are concerned that investing sustainably would hinder investment outcomes.
Schroders said this was an indication that investors are increasingly convinced robust returns and a positive impact are not mutually exclusive.
European investors are the least concerned with 23% worried investing sustainably would harm returns. Asian investors have more concerns (29%), in particular, investors in China (39%), Indonesia (38%) and Thailand (34%). These investors identified returns as a barrier to investing sustainably.
Among countries with the lowest level of concerns were Denmark (18%), France (19%), Belgium (19%) and Germany (20%).
The study confirmed that investing sustainably is a trend that continues to grow globally, said Schroders, with 64% of investors having increased their allocations over the past five years and nearly three quarters saying that investing sustainably has increased in importance to them over the same timeframe.
Millennials are more likely to have increased their exposures to sustainable investments over the last five years, with 71% of 18-24 year-olds and 75% of 25-34 year-olds having increased them.
Globally, those that considered themselves to have ‘expert’ levels of knowledge said they invest 54% of their investment portfolio sustainably.
Jessica Ground, global head of stewardship at Schroders, said: “This survey underlines the rapid growth of interest in sustainable investing. The fact that 64% of investors have increased their allocation to sustainable investments in the past five years tells you how important this is for so many people.
“Specifically, it’s encouraging to see that investors no longer appear to be held back from investing sustainably by concerns that this approach may hamper returns.”
The results are in the Schroders ‘Global Investor Study 2018’.
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