ESG Investing: Practices, Progress and Challenges

While the mainstreaming of forms of sustainable finance is a welcome development, the terminology and practices associated with ESG investing vary considerably. One reason for this is that ESG investing has evolved from socially responsible investment philosophies into a distinct form of responsible investing. While earlier approaches used exclusionary screening and value judgments to shape their investment decisions, ESG investing has been spurred by shifts in demand from across the finance ecosystem, driven by both the search for better long-term financial value, and a pursuit of better alignment with values.

This report provides an overview of concepts, assessments, and conducts quantitative analysis to shed light on both the progress and challenges with respect to the current state of ESG investing. It highlights the wide variety of metrics, methodologies, and approaches that, while valid, contribute to disparate outcomes, adding to a range of ESG investment practices that, in aggregate, arrive at an industry consensus on the performance of high-ESG portfolios, which may remain open to interpretation. The extent to which the ESG approach incorporates forward-looking financially-material information into expectations of returns and risks, and the extent to which it can help generate superior long-term returns, is the focus of this report.

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