Sustainable Signals: Growth and Opportunity in Asset Management

This report highlights the result of a recent survey of US asset managers.

Too many foundation board and staff members may think of sustainable investing and ESG as simply a matter of “checking a box.” However, the field has progressed far beyond the exclusion of companies that produce objectionable products like alcohol, tobacco, and gambling. 

What is underappreciated is that sustainable investing and ESG definitions, procedures, and metrics continue to develop. For example, the securities analysis industry has long been dependent on the robust quarterly output of standardized accounting and financial data by the business world. Sustainable Investing/ESG/Impact analysis similarly is dependent on the ongoing improvement and development of new and better metrics in order to generate standardized, high-quality ESG data and analysis over time. 

This survey, conducted annually, captures this important and ongoing development from the asset managers’ perspective.