Study finds rising social investment
Every two years, the Social Investment Forum surveys the social investment field. Copies of past reports, stretching back to their initial 1995 survey, and a link to the executive summary of the 2007 report can be downloaded here. The report notes that assets held by community development financial institutions rose nearly 32 percent from $19.6 billion in 2005 to $25.8 billion in 2007. The much broader category of socially responsible investment, which includes assets under management that use “screening” to select stocks or engage in shareholder advocacy (i.e., challenging management in proxy votes) climbed to $2.71 trillion, an 18 percent increase from the $2.29 trillion level in 2005. Today, nearly one out of every nine dollars under professional management in the United States is involved in some form of socially responsible investing—11 percent of the $25.1 trillion in total assets under management tracked in Nelson Information’s Directory of Investment Managers.
Highlights of the new Social Investment Forum Trends report include the following:
Screened funds: Assets in socially and environmentally screened funds—including mutual funds and exchange-traded funds—rose to $201.8 billion in 260 funds in 2007, a 13 percent increase over the $179.0 billion in the 201 tracked in 2005.
Institutional investors: At more than $1.9 trillion in assets, socially screened separate accounts managed for institutional investors and high net worth individual clients constituted the bulk of SRI assets tracked in 2007, up 28 percent from $1.5 trillion in 2005.
Shareholder resolutions: The average level of shareholder support for resolutions on social and environmental issues increased 57 percent from 9.8 percent in 2005 to 15.4 percent in 2007, a record high.
Further information about the survey is available in a March 5 press release issued by the Social Investment Forum.
Posted by Steve Dubb on 04/19/2008 at 07:26 AM
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