How to Start Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Investing
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Providers and investors alike are rushing to join the sustainable bandwagon as socially responsible investment sweeps the globe.
Unfortunately, there are a number of murky places in the "sustainable" world. ESG, or investing in environmental, social, and governance issues, aims to alter that. ESG investing attempts to define precisely what sustainability should entail by using certain criteria to evaluate investments.
Describe ESG
Environmental, social, and governance are referred to as ESG. Investors use these non-financial elements to gauge the sustainability of an investment or business. Environmental elements focus on protecting the environment, social factors analyze how a firm treats its employees and the community at large, and governance factors analyze how a corporation is run.
Here are some other things ESG looks at:
ESG investing
ESG investing is a form of sustainable investing that considers environmental, social, and governance factors to judge an investment’s financial returns and its overall impact. An investment’s ESG score measures the sustainability of investment in those specific categories.
According to the US SIF Foundation’s 2020 trends report, U.S. assets under management using ESG strategies grew to $17.1 trillion at the beginning of 2020. That’s a 42% increase from $12 trillion at the beginning of 2018.
ESG investing benefits
Aside from having a more sustainable investment portfolio, ESG has other compelling benefits.
ESG investing may lead to high returns
A 2019 white paper produced by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing compared the performance of sustainable funds with traditional funds and found that from 2004 to 2018, the total returns of sustainable mutual and exchange-traded funds were similar to those of traditional funds. Other studies have found that ESG investments can outperform conventional ones.
JUST Capital ranks companies based on factors such as whether they pay fair wages or take steps to protect the environment. It created the JUST U.S. Large Cap Diversified Index (JULCD), which includes the top 50% of companies in the Russell 1000 (a large-cap stock index) based on those rankings. Since its inception, the index has returned 15.94% on an annualized basis compared with the Russell 1000’s 14.76% return.
ESG investing may lower your risk
The same Morgan Stanley study found that sustainable funds consistently showed a lower downside risk than traditional funds, regardless of an asset class. The study found that during turbulent markets, such as in 2008, 2009, 2015, and 2018, traditional funds had significantly larger downside deviation than sustainable funds, meaning traditional funds had a higher potential for loss.
ESG funds have even managed to post strong performance during 2020. Of 26 sustainable index funds analyzed by investment research company Morningstar on April, 24 outperformed comparable traditional funds in the first quarter of 2020 (and the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic).
ESG investing vs. socially responsible investing vs. CSR
Another common term for the process of creating a sustainable investment portfolio is socially responsible investing, or SRI. While SRI and ESG both seek to build more responsible portfolios, there are a few differences between the two terms.
ESG is a system for how to measure the sustainability of a company or investment in three specific categories: environmental, social, and governance. Socially responsible investing, ethical investing, sustainable investing, and impact investing are more general terms. Often, “socially responsible investments” are measured using an ESG-based grading system.
Historically, certain forms of sustainable investing varied in how they created their portfolios. For example, SRI used an exclusionary-only approach to filter out investments some considered immoral, like tobacco or alcohol. ESG investing excluded those same investments, but also included companies deemed to be creating a positive impact.
The larger the world of sustainable investing has grown, the more those terms (among others) have been used interchangeably. You’ll see providers who offer a “socially responsible” portfolio that includes ESG funds (as opposed to just excluding certain investments), and ones with the same title that uses a solely exclusionary approach. That is why it’s important to look into the methodology used to create a portfolio — no matter what it’s called.
CSR, or corporate social responsibility, is a business practice taken on by a company to improve a local community, the environment, or society at large. Beyond helping their cause, CSR initiatives can improve a company's public opinion. CSR initiative planners may take ESG factors into consideration when mapping out their CSR strategy.
ESG investing examples
Investing in ESG can come in many forms: You can invest in an ESG fund or a stock that has a high ESG score. Here are a few ESG investment examples from our list of the best ESG funds:
1919 Socially Responsive Balanced A (SSIAX)
Pax Large Cap Fund Institutional (PXLIX)
Thornburg Better World International I (TBWIX)
Parnassus Core Equity Investor (PRBLX)
iShares MSCI USA ESG Select ETF (SUSA)
Types of ESG investments
There are several kinds of ESG investments, but here are a few of the more popular ones and how to research them.
ESG stocks
It’s usually a good idea to avoid a high percentage of your portfolio is held in one or a small handful of individual stocks, but if you really like a particular company (and you think it will perform well over time) you may want to buy its stock. Some companies offer an impact report, which will highlight any sustainable or cultural initiatives they’ve implemented and how they handle issues such as carbon emissions. If you want to know how a company scores in terms of its work environment, check out a third-party site such as Glassdoor. You’ll also want to look at more typical factors such as revenue and net income. Learn more about how to research stocks.
ESG mutual funds
Funds can fill out your portfolio quickly and can diversify your holdings instantly. The number of ESG funds has surged in recent years. According to Morningstar data, there were 303 open-end and exchange-traded funds in 2019, up from 270 in 2018. Some of these funds focus on a particular issue, such as green energy, making it easy to personalize your portfolio’s area of impact. If your broker offers a mutual fund screening tool, you can compare different funds to see how their ESG ratings stack up.
To learn about the specific details of a particular fund, such as what companies the fund invests in, you’ll want to look through its prospectus. This document should be available on your online broker’s website and will include other helpful information like the fund’s expense ratio. Expense ratios are annual fees taken as a percentage of investment. To figure out how much you’d pay to own a specific fund, you can use a mutual fund calculator.
ESG investing: How to get started
Starting a portfolio and filling it with environmentally, socially and governance-minded investments don’t need to be difficult. And since there are more ESG investments than ever, you’ll have lots of options to choose from. Here’s how to build an ESG portfolio.
1. Choose to DIY or get some help
If you want to create an ESG-style investment portfolio, you’ll have to decide whether you want to do it yourself by picking specific ESG investments or find a Robo-advisor that will do the work for you.
A. I want to find my own ESG investments
If you like the idea of reading up on a company’s sustainability initiatives or ensuring a fund’s companies are in alignment with your moral compass, you may want to build your own ESG portfolio. If you need a brokerage account, here's how to open one. Keep in mind, some brokerages have screening tools that can help you sift through various ESG (or sustainable/socially responsible/ethical) investments. Once you have a brokerage account, you can head to the next step.
B. I want help with ESG investing
Building an investment portfolio takes time, especially when you are trying to find investments that align with a particular framework, such as ESG. Robo-advisors can make this easier. Robo-advisors are digital advisors that build and manage investment portfolios based on your risk tolerance and goals. They’re usually much less expensive than in-person advisors. And now more than ever, Robo-advisors are jumping on the ESG bandwagon — often letting investors opt into a sustainable portfolio for no extra charge.
Here are some Robo-advisors that offer socially responsible portfolios:
- Betterment: Provides three impact portfolios to choose from Broad Impact, Climate Impact, and Social Impact.
- Wealthfront: Offers a pre-made socially responsible portfolio. You can customize any portfolio with socially responsible ETFs.
- Merrill Edge Guided Investing: Clients can invest in an ESG portfolio and request restrictions on certain ETFs.
Just remember to investigate a potential Robo-advisor’s methodology to make sure they use both inclusionary and exclusionary filters if you decide that’s important to you. If you choose to work with a Robo-advisor, you won’t need to follow the rest of the steps.
2. Know your own ESG criteria
ESG has some pretty clear boundaries, especially in comparison to “ethical investing” or “socially responsible investing,” but that doesn’t mean it fits perfectly with your beliefs. Values differ from person to person, so take a little time to identify some of the values most important to you, and see if any fall outside of what “ESG” entails. If they do, make sure you’re looking for investments that also incorporate those ideals. For example, Muslim investors may want to ensure that their investments comply with Islamic law.
3. Choose ESG investments
Once you have a brokerage account and you know what industries you want to support with your investment dollars, you can start creating your portfolio.
Reading reviews from independent research firms such as Morningstar can show you how a company or fund scores in terms of ESG investing factors, and whether you’d like to invest in them.
When you’re creating your own ESG portfolio, you’ll likely include funds such as ESG mutual funds or exchange-traded funds, or ESG stocks.