Morgan Stanley
  • Institute for Sustainable Investing
  • Feb 21, 2019

Asset Managers See Opportunity in Sustainable Investing

Sustainable investments have more than tripled since 20121. How has the asset management industry risen to meet demand?

Morgan Stanley’s Institute for Sustainable Investing and Bloomberg L..P. surveyed 300 U.S. asset management professionals to find out how they are delivering sustainable investing solutions to clients and where they see growth and opportunity. Here are some of the highlights of their new report, “Sustainable Signals: Growth and Opportunity in Asset Management.”

Say their firms practice sustainable investing, up from 65% in 2016.

Believe it’s possible to maximize financial returns while investing sustainably.

Say their firms will devote additional resources to sustainable investing in the next 1-2 years.

Fueling their interest is a 220% rise since 2012 in U.S. assets under management that use sustainable investing criteria.

Source: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment: "2018 Report on U.S. Sustainable, Responsible, and Impact Investing Trends."

Sustainable investing is part of the mainstream…

89%

say sustainable investing is here to stay.

…but there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

Looking to the future, firms expect to differentiate themselves through talent development:

TRAINING

41% say their firms will devote more resources to employee training.

RESOURCES

37% say their firms will dedicate more employee time to sustainable investing.

SPECIALISTS

34% say their firms will hire sustainable investing specialists.

The survey is an update to one that Morgan Stanley's Institute for Sustainable Investing and Bloomberg L..P. conducted in 2016, "Sustainable Signals: The Asset Manager Perspective," which you can read here.

For more survey results

Read the Report

1 The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment: "2018 Report on U.S. Sustainable, Responsible, and Impact Investing Trends."

 

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