Morgan Stanley

Sustainable Solutions and Services

Morgan Stanley strives to be a leader in ESG innovation. We leverage our research, advisory and investing capabilities to deliver financial solutions and services that aim to meet client demand for both competitive financial returns and positive environmental and social outcomes. 

Over the past decade, GSF has worked to incubate innovative solutions to drive ESG integration.
Matthew Slovik Head of Global Sustainable Finance, Morgan Stanley

Integrating ESG, Delivering Innovative Financial Solutions and Advisory Services

Our goal is to be the financial services partner of choice for clients seeking to create sustainable, long-term value. Since 2009, Global Sustainable Finance (GSF), a team within the Global Sustainability Office (GSO), has partnered with our three businesses—Institutional Securities, Wealth Management and Investment Management—on a fast-growing array of sustainable solutions.

“Over the past decade, GSF has worked to incubate innovative solutions to drive ESG integration,”  says Matthew Slovik, Head of Global Sustainable Finance.

Institutional Securities

We use the scale and speed of capital markets to provide capital to innovative companies, including those that seek to drive positive environmental and social benefits.

Learn about Institutional Securities’ efforts

Wealth Management

We connect individuals, families and institutions seeking to make a positive difference with their capital to ESG investment strategies through our Investing with Impact platform.

Explore Investing with Impact

Investment Management

Our investment solutions include a broad range of high-conviction active strategies, alternatives, customization strategies and ESG expertise.

Discover sustainable investing

Institutional Securities

Morgan Stanley has been a leader on green and sustainability bonds since 2013. As sustainable finance becomes increasingly mainstream, our commercial teams continue to expand their frontiers into new products, services and markets.

2022 Highlights

Learn More About Our Sustainable Finance Capabilities


Wealth Management

Celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2022, the Wealth Management Investing with Impact platform offers a range of investment products, portfolio solutions, tools and analysis for clients who seek to generate both market-rate financial returns and measurable, positive environmental and social impact. Our accessible and customizable Investing with Impact strategies and solutions span asset classes and focus on multiple sustainability objectives, including climate action; advancing diversity, equity and inclusion; and faith-based investing.

Our Client-Centered Approach to Investing with Impact

The Investing with Impact Platform

Launched in 2012, the Wealth Management Investing with Impact platform is a part of the firm’s broad commitment to accelerate the flow of capital to sustainable investing. Investing with Impact is an investment approach that aims to generate market-rate financial returns while demonstrating positive impact, or values alignment, and is available to clients of all sizes. With $68 billion in client assets as of 2022, the Investing with Impact platform offers 15 Investing with Impact Portfolio Solutions and 310+ financial products across all asset classes (including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and separately managed accounts), custom portfolios, fixed income and alternative impact investments (for qualified investors). It also focuses on multiple sustainability themes, such as climate action; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI); and faith-based investing. The Investing with Impact Framework focuses on the three i’s of impact—intentionality, influence and inclusion—and guides our approach to sustainable investing, portfolio construction and manager due diligence.

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Morgan Stanley IQ

Morgan Stanley Impact Quotient® is a patented, award-winning impact reporting and analysis application that enables our clients, with their Financial Advisor or Institutional Consultant, to define their unique social and environmental impact objectives, assess the alignment of their current portfolio holdings against them, and make informed investment decisions to better align over time.

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Investing with Impact through 2022**

Learn more about investing with impact


Investment Management

Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM)1 seeks to deliver investment and risk- management solutions tailored to a wide range of clients’ sustainability needs. Our MSIM investment teams act as responsible long-term investors, and our collective purpose in delivering long-term value for our clients guides our sustainability business agenda, investment and stewardship activities. MSIM believes that ESG factors can bring investment risks and opportunities. Understanding and managing these may contribute to both risk mitigation and long-term investment returns. We seek to drive investment performance through engagement with the assets we own to deliver long-term value and align with our objective to be responsible stewards of our clients’ capital.

Our March 2021 acquisition of Eaton Vance and affiliates, including subsidiary Calvert Research and Management, a long-time leader among U.S. responsible investment management companies, and subsidiary Parametric, a leading provider of customized, ESG and tax-managed solutions, combine our efforts and commitment to ESG across our businesses, initiatives, industry partnerships and people. We aim to leverage our influence as an investor to drive better investment performance alongside improved corporate sustainability practices and outcomes through thoughtful, value-added investee engagement.

MSIM's Approach to Sustainable Investing

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Governance

Effective management of stewardship and sustainability issues is a core component of our business strategy, and we have established appropriate governance systems, risk management and controls to support and advance sustainable investing and stewardship across our business activities. Our MSIM ESG Committee oversees MSIM’s ESG-related goals and strategy, products, engagement initiatives, training, and technology and data. It is also responsible for the MSIM Sustainable Investing Policy,2 which outlines in more detail our commitment to sustainable investing and governance.

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Sustainable Investing Solutions

We offer clients a spectrum of flexible and innovative sustainable investing solutions across asset classes that are aligned with clients’ return objectives alongside their sustainability preferences and needs. Our investment teams may incorporate the assessment of material ESG risks and opportunities into investment decision-making processes, as appropriate, and according to investment teams’ particular investment strategies. This may occur at various stages of the investment lifecycle including due diligence and research, valuation, asset selection, portfolio construction, and ongoing engagement and investment monitoring. Such ESG tools may include, but are not limited to, consideration of ESG factors, use of exclusionary screens, use of proprietary frameworks and/or thematic objectives/alignment and sustainable investment objectives and/or impact.

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Stewardship and Engagement

We maintain shareholder rights, offer stakeholder guidance and engage on behalf of our clients and as appropriate and consistent with our fiduciary obligations, encourage relevant, strong ESG practices with portfolio companies, issuers, borrowers and counterparties.

Learn more about sustainable investing at Morgan Stanley Investment Management


Community Development Finance

Morgan Stanley helps deliver lasting positive changes in communities across the United States. Our program’s track record in meeting community needs has consistently earned Morgan Stanley’s U.S. banks “Outstanding” ratings from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Our Community Development Finance (CDF) Group works with community and nonprofit partners to deliver programs that meet pressing needs. Focus areas include sustainable and affordable multifamily rental housing, healthy communities, equitable transit-oriented development, economic development that supports quality jobs, capital for underserved small and rural markets and nonprofits' capacity building. The $1 billion Morgan Stanley Social Bond accelerates this work by directing capital into affordable housing developments.

2010-2022 Community Development Achievements**

Download the latest ESG Report