{"id":435483,"date":"2021-12-08T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/?p=435483"},"modified":"2021-12-08T15:54:22","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T20:54:22","slug":"despite-the-hype-investors-esg-interest-hasnt-grown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/news\/research-and-markets\/despite-the-hype-investors-esg-interest-hasnt-grown\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite the hype, investors’ ESG interest hasn’t grown"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pandemic that’s highlighted climate-related and social issues has also thrust the responsible investment (RI) market into the spotlight.<\/p>\n

“In just the first nine months of 2021, 63 new RI funds were introduced in Canada, bringing the total number of RI funds to 208,” said the sixth-annual investor opinion survey from the Responsible Investment Association (RIA).<\/p>\n

But investor interest hasn’t risen at the same pace as market growth. The RIA found the percentage of those interested in RI (73%, compared with 72% a year ago) has barely changed, though it is up substantially from 2018 (60%).<\/p>\n

And only 31% of respondents said they own investments that account for environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, down slightly from 33% a year ago.<\/p>\n

However, a similar proportion of respondents (33%, up from 31% in 2020) said they weren’t sure if they owned ESG investments \u2014 a finding consistent with respondents’ “overall reported lack of RI knowledge, as well as their strong interest and desire for more information from advisors,” the report said.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the majority of Canadians (69%) reported knowing little or nothing about RI, though that’s an improvement from 75% a year ago. Of that group, 20% said they’ve never heard of RI.<\/p>\n

Want more immediate, memorable insights? Listen to this Soundbites episode<\/a>, featuring Hadiza Djataou of Mackenzie Investments.<\/em><\/div>\n

Hurdles for RI<\/h2>\n

While 77% of respondents said they’d like their financial advisors to tell them about RI investments, only 27% of respondents said their advisors had done so. Further, only 40% of investors aged 18-34 reported being asked about their interest in RI, while only 18% of investors aged 55+ were asked.<\/p>\n

Another hurdle is fear of greenwashing, which the survey defined as “false information that is distributed by an organization to make it look more environmentally responsible than it actually is.”<\/p>\n

Using this definition, 78% of respondents said they were very or somewhat concerned about misrepresentation in the RI market.<\/p>\n

This is an issue that’s exacerbated by investors’ own lack of knowledge, the report added, given that only 5% reported knowing “a lot” about RI.<\/p>\n

Even so, respondents were concerned about companies’ commitments to net-zero emissions as well as the transition to a net-zero economy.<\/p>\n

For example, 85% of those polled said they strongly or somewhat agreed that Canadian corporations should have goals tied to net-zero emissions, and 86% said it was very or somewhat important that “negative outcomes” be avoided for workers and communities affected when transitioning to net zero.<\/p>\n

Further, “77% of respondents agreed strongly or somewhat that they would like a portion of their investment portfolio to be invested in companies that plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 or sooner,” the report said.<\/p>\n

Respondents were also interested in the rights of Indigenous communities, with most respondents (70%) noting that they want Canadian companies in their portfolios to partner with Indigenous peoples on energy transition decisions.<\/p>\n

The RIA report was based on findings from an Ipsos poll of 1,000 investors conducted for the RIA from Sept. 13 to 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While responsible investment assets and products have proliferated, knowledge gaps and other concerns affect investor interest <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176169,"featured_media":411183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2313,2312],"tags":[54454,2492,53842],"yst_prominent_words":[7626,97537,97536,97521,79796,72531,17757,16741,13533,10380,9281,2,6330,6236,6076,5382,4996,4847,2257,14],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435483"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435638,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435483\/revisions\/435638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435483"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=435483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}