Search results

This study aims to understand how scholarly research addresses sustainable investments’ contribution to sustainable development (SD) within the sustainable development goals (SDG) framework. This is achieved by focusing on how the asset management industry, through the practice of advanced sustainable investment strategies, can contribute more efficiently to SD.

For this purpose, a systematic literature review using the content analysis method and comprised between the years 2015 and 2021 is carried out.

A systematic literature review shows that the asset management industry is critical to integrating SDGs in financial markets, through their influence on investee companies or their investment products. The findings also indicate that SDGs are integrated into investment portfolios, particularly those managed according to the impact investment strategy and those that practice active ownership. However, the integration is not homogeneous.

This review has limitations derived from search engineering. In addition, research goals have conditioned the exclusion of articles that merely refer to the SDGs. Moreover, since SDGs were launched in 2015, not enough time has elapsed to analyze the total contribution of sustainable investment to achieving the SDGs.

This study provides the basis for a multidisciplinary debate related to developing a good integration of SDGs in the asset management industry under new global challenges.

Given the disconnection between the expansion of sustainable investment and sustainability achievements, this research aims to deepen the understanding of how sustainable investment can contribute more efficiently to SD within the framework of SDGs.

This analysis advances previous academic research by providing insights into new pathways for future studies on how to approach the asset management industry's challenges to contribute to sustainable development efficiently in the current context.

Purpose – The financial crisis has exposed a behavioral paradox: although asset managers are putting significant effort into meeting institutional pressures to demonstrate transparency and responsible behavior, their actual investment behaviors seem to remain inconsistent with responsible ownership. We seek to understand asset managers’ motivations to use externally defined environment, social, and governance (ESG) information to engage in sustainable investment.

Methodology/approach – We draw on insights from the sensemaking literature, as well as institutional, behavioral, and cognitive theories to shed new light on asset managers’ motivations to demonstrate conformance with ESG criteria.

Findings – The more asset managers demonstrate conformance, the less likely they are to make an effort to integrate sustainability and long-term, return-making concerns in their investment behaviors. As a result of the organization’s decoupling strategy, asset managers who are obliged to justify responsible behavior tend to have a limited sense of responsibility for encouraging long-term changes in corporate behavior.

Practical implications – We argue that calls for greater transparency in investment decisions under the guise of demonstrating conformance to ESG information requirements will not lead to more sustainable investment behavior.

Originality/value – This chapter challenges the assumption in the sustainable investment literature that the common use of ESG criteria enables investors to pressure and empower companies in the long term.

This study analyses the role of individuals' objective financial knowledge in shaping preferences for ethical intermediaries and sustainable investments in Italy. Another goal of this study is to assess the impact of individuals' misperceptions about their own financial knowledge and to test for gender-related differences in attitudes towards socially responsible investing (SRI).

Using nationally representative microdata from the Bank of Italy’s “Italian Literacy and Financial Competence Survey” (IACOFI), the authors use probit models, extended to account for potential endogeneity issues, to assess the causal effects of financial knowledge and confidence on stated preferences for SRI. Empirical models also allow to explicitly assess the moderating role of gender on the effects of financial knowledge and confidence on attitudes towards sustainable investing.

Results indicate that individuals' preferences for sustainable finance significantly increase with financial knowledge, suggesting that inadequate financial competencies represent a barrier to participation in SRI. At the same time, lack of confidence in one’s own financial knowledge significantly hampers attitudes towards sustainable investments. Furthermore, the authors show that women have a greater preference for sustainable finance than men and point out that financial knowledge and confidence exert heterogenous effects on attitudes towards SRI.

This study provides several contributions to the literature on SRI. First, the authors give evidence of the causal effect of financial knowledge on preferences for both ethical financial intermediaries and sustainable investments. Moreover, this is the first study to investigate the role of financial underconfidence bias in shaping individuals' SRI attitudes. Finally, extending previous research, the authors assess differences in SRI preferences between women and men and provide novel evidence on gender-related heterogeneity in the effects of financial knowledge and underconfidence.

This paper aims to focus on impact integrity in investment decision-making – an under-researched yet important topic – as a means for optimising investor contributions to sustainable development outcomes, including achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This conceptual paper adopts a two-step approach. First, this paper reviews existing “responsible” investment strategies and products used in practice and highlight their shortcomings in terms of optimising sustainable development outcomes. Second, drawing from the minimal standards theory, this study explores how emerging impact management practices may strengthen impact integrity in investment decision-making and mitigate shortcomings in existing “responsible” investment approaches to increase their contribution to sustainable development outcomes.

Current “responsible” investment approaches often do not optimise sustainable development outcomes and may facilitate “impact washing”. The theoretically grounded framework demonstrates standardised impact management practices based on a bounded flexibility approach – adaptable to different contexts within limits and assessed by skilled analysts – along with incorporating shared language and conventions supported by appropriate accountability mechanisms that can be used to mitigate shortcomings in current “responsible” investment approaches. The authors further propose accountability mechanisms to systematically involve stakeholders (including rightsholders) in decisions that impact them with effective grievance and reparation mechanisms. Such an approach, the authors argue will strengthen impact integrity and the capacity of investments to optimise contributions to sustainable development outcomes.

The findings have implications for the ability of investment markets to optimise their contributions to sustainable development and the SDGs.

By highlighting shortcomings in current “responsible” investment approaches and focussing on strengthening impact integrity in investment decision-making through standardised impact management practices, the findings enhance the capacity of investment markets to contribute positively to sustainable development and the SDGs.

Despite its importance, impact integrity in investment decision-making is severely under-researched with little academic attention. This paper fills this void.

The majority of the literature on green buildings in Ghana focuses on environmental benefits, innovative designs, construction technologies and project management techniques. However, little is known about how such facilities are financed. This issue creates potential knowledge gaps, one of which this study aims to address. This study examines the key drivers for green building project financing in Ghana.

The study uses an explanatory sequential design with an initial quantitative instrument phase, followed by a qualitative data collection phase. An extensive critical comparative review of the literature resulted in the identification of eight potential drivers. One hundred and twenty-seven questionnaire responses based upon these drivers from the Ghanaian construction industry were received. Data were coded with SPSS v22, analysed descriptively (mean, standard deviation and standard error) and via inferential analysis (One Way ANOVA and One-Sample t-Test). These data were then validated through semi-structured interviews with ten industry professionals within the Ghana Green Building Council. Data obtained from the semi-structured validation interviews were analysed through the side-by-side comparison of the qualitative data with the quantitative data.

Though all eight drivers are important, the five key drivers for the Ghanian construction industry were identified as, in order of importance, “high return on investment”, “emerging business opportunity”, “ethical investment”, “conservation of resources” and “mandatory regulations, standards, and policies”. The interviewees agreed to and confirmed the importance of these identified drivers for green building project financing from validating the survey's key findings.

Key limitations of this study are the restrictions regarding the geographical location of the collected data (i.e. Kumasi and Accra); timing of the study and sample size (i.e. the COVID-19 pandemic making it difficult to obtain adequate data).

Though this study was conducted in Ghana, its implications could be useful to researchers, policymakers, stakeholders and practitioners in wider sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, financial institutions can invest in green buildings to expand their green construction and mortgage finance products to build higher value and lower risk portfolios. The findings from this study can provide investors with the enhanced certainty needed to help guide and inform their investment decisions, i.e. what to invest in, and when, by how much and how a scheme being “green” may influence their rate of return. Also, for building developers, it will give them a clearer understanding of the business case for green buildings and how to differentiate themselves in the market to grow their businesses.

This study's findings provide insights into an under-investigated topic in Ghana and offer new and additional information and insights to the current state-of-the-art on the factors that drive green building project financing.

Strong growth and social progress have made Brazil one of the world’s leading economies over the past three decades, but Brazil remains a highly unequal country with an urgent need for reforms to sustain and continue development with inclusive growth. This chapter introduces sustainable foreign direct investments (FDIs), which can be tools to promote sustainable development and improve the living conditions of all Brazilians, thus representing entrepreneurship for social change in Brazil. Although there is a large recognition that FDIs might pave the way for sustainable development, it does not happen in an automatic way and, in this chapter, some instruments are presented as pathways for achieving that aim in Brazil. First, it analyses the scenario of inequalities in Brazil and a call for more sustainable private investments to achieve social inclusion. Next, it introduces the state of the art of Brazil’s framework and legislation on sustainable FDIs. Last, it presents initiatives on financing and promotion of sustainable development in Brazil. This chapter comes to a conclusion that Brazil has taken the first steps, but much more has to be done in order to effectively introduce sustainable FDIs as entrepreneurial tools for social inclusion, reduction of inequalities and better conditions of life for all Brazilians.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the rationale for integrating sustainability issues into property valuation theory and practice and to provide initial suggestions for valuers on how to account for sustainability issues within valuation reports.

The authors emphasise the key role of valuation professionals and of the valuation process itself in achieving a broader market penetration of sustainable construction. It is explained that, on the one hand, property valuation represents the major mechanism to align economic return with environmental and social performance of property assets, and thus to express and communicate the advantages and benefits of sustainable buildings. On the other hand, it is explained that gradual changes in market participants' perceptions in favour of sustainable buildings must be reflected within the property valuation and associated risk assessment process (otherwise valuers would produce misleading price estimates). The authors identify both the financial benefits and risk reduction potential of sustainable design as well as valuation input parameters that would allow these benefits to be reflected in property price estimates.

The authors show that the main reasons for immediately and rigorously integrating sustainability issues into property valuation are as follows: more sustainable patterns of behaviour are urgently necessary to sustain the viability of the Earth's ecosystems; a huge untapped market potential exists for sustainable property investment products and consulting services; sustainable buildings clearly outperform their conventional competitors in all relevant areas (i.e. environmentally, socially and financially); neglecting the benefits of sustainable design leads to distorted price estimates; and reflecting sustainability issues in property price estimates is already possible and the validity of this decision depends solely on the valuer's capability and sophistication to explain and justify his/her assumptions within the valuation report. However, it is also shown that efforts need to be undertaken to improve the description of property assets in transaction databases in order to provide the informational databases necessary to empirically underpin a valuer's decision to assign a “valuation bonus” to a sustainable building or a “valuation reduction” to an unsustainable/conventional one.

The paper postulates that valuation reports should be extended to include the following additional elements: a clear description of the availability of certain sustainability‐related property characteristics and attributes; a statement of the valuer's opinion about the benefits of these characteristics and attributes; and a statement of the valuer's opinion about the impact of these benefits and/or risks on property value.

Sustainable investments (SI) represent a promising class of investments, combining financial returns with mitigating environmental challenges, achieving SDG goals and creating a positive business impact. An enhanced global focus on climate change developments in the backdrop of COP26 and COP27, raised the need for comprehensive literature mapping, to understand the emerging themes and future research arenas in this field.

The authors apply a quali–quantitative approach of bibliometric methods coupled with content analysis, to review 1,022 articles obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) database for 1991–2023.

The results identify the leading authors and their collaborations, impactful journals and pioneering articles in sustainable investment literature. The authors also indicate seven major themes of SI to be financial performance; fiduciary duty; CSR; construction of ESG-based portfolios; sustainability assessment tools and mechanisms; investor behavior; and impact investing. Further, content analysis of literature from 2020 to 2023 highlights emerging research issues to be SDG financing via green bonds and social impact bonds; investor impact creation via shareholder engagement and field building strategies; and governance related determinants of firm-level sustainable investments. Finally, the authors discuss the research gaps across these themes and identify future research questions.

This paper crystallizes research themes in sustainable investment literature using a vast coverage of globally conducted studies published in reputed journals till date. The findings of this study coupled with future research questions provide a well-grounded foundation for new researchers to further explore the emerging dimensions of this field.

Growing attention of policymakers, governments and regulation authorities towards climate change and global warming has spurred the extensive need to carefully examine the current practices of green and sustainable finance. This study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis on the current state and future directions of green and sustainable finance through bibliometric analysis.

For extensive bibliometric analysis, the study comprises 1,413 documents published in peer-reviewed journals indexed in the SCOPUS database for the period ranging from 1990 to 2021.

The authors find that there are mainly three key areas of green and sustainable finance, which are largely addressed by the scholars following the given time. The key areas include socially responsible investments, green finance and climate finance that are in line with the previous studies and existing trends and practices prevailing in the business and corporate world.

The findings are important for policymakers, regulatory bodies, upcoming scholars, environmentalists and investors as findings of the study provide an effective framework for adopting sustainable strategies, to trade-off between profits and environmental hazards and to generate value from the green avenues of research and practice.

The study offers novel contributions to the existing literature in terms of comprehensively providing evidence of the current practices of green and sustainable finance. Meanwhile, significant implications for the prospective audience further refine the contribution of research.

Recently, socially and responsible investments (SRI) have constantly grown becoming a highly discussed issue. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to better understand if environmental social governance (ESG) criteria integration in investment strategies can support the transition of finance toward a more sustainable growth.

An explorative analysis based on a multiple case study has been conducted and addressed by a content analysis on the Key Investors Information Documents (KIIDs) that the sample companies published for 2020.

The achieved results demonstrated that the case companies differently integrated ESG into their SRI; thus, if some of them are quite near to a full integration, the others demonstrated less than a full commitment with ESG. This seems to be mainly due to the different approach that asset management companies (AMCs) and/or managers have adopted for integrating ESG criteria.

Even though the achieved results offered some interesting insights for asset managers, the explorative and qualitative nature of this study and the small sample investigated somewhat limits it.

AMCs, consultants and managers in developing and implementing their SRI strategy could be much more focused on the importance of ESG integration for the transition toward a more responsible and sustainable finance (micro-level) as well as a more sustainable development (macro-level).

The paper provides new insights into the essence of SRI strategies and their potential to contribute to sustainable development. Thus, it tries to shed new lights on the role that ESG can have to stimulate and support investment decisions and, in so doing, contributing to make finance grow more sustainable.