Socially responsible investment
("SRI") is not, or at least should not
be, news to anyone. However, if one were to consider the recent
proliferation of related activity from regulators you might think
that SRI was a relatively new phenomenon when in actual fact its
origins go back centuries to when early SRI principles were
articulated by John Wesley.
SRI is today widely understood as the integration of
environmental, social and governance
("ESG") factors into the investment
process. The term ESG was first used in 2005 and it is estimated
that ESG currently accounts for almost one quarter of all
professionally managed assets globally.
Investors are more sophisticated in their understanding and
approach to ESG and increasingly are demanding greater stewardship
from asset managers to ensure that their money is invested in a
socially-responsible way. This places an onus on asset managers to
better articulate how they integrate ESG factors into their
investment
