Here’s how ESG returns stack up

Article Excerpt

Sustainable investing has grown exponentially over the past decade, while its scope has broadened and the approach has become more sophisticated. As of December 2021, assets under management at global exchange-traded funds that publicly set environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) investment objectives amounted to more than $2.7 trillion; 81% were in European-based funds, and 13% were in U.S.-based funds. According to research published by Morningstar in 2018, 16 out of 20 equity indexes in the Morningstar Global Sustainability Index family, have beaten their non-sustainability equivalents over their lifespans. The Sustainable indexes have also been less volatile, while the underlying companies on average had healthier balance sheets than their non-Sustainable equivalents. However, a study by the index provider Scientific Beta entitled “Honey I Shrunk the ESG Alpha” concluded that there was no solid evidence to support claims that companies selected on ESG criteria can deliver superior performance. While they did find that many ESG strategies performed better than similar non-ESG strategies between 2008-2020,…