Five reasons why responsible investment will keep growing

The unprecedented year of 2020 has presented many challenges and left us many lessons, but for those in the finance sector, it’s simultaneously been a time of dramatic momentum for responsible and ethical investing which is redefining how we do investment over the years ahead.

It’s unsurprising, as the financial case for responsible investing compounds on the moral. Not only have responsible investments weathered the COVID storm much more strongly than their mainstream peers, the most recent Responsible Investment Benchmark Report New Zealand from the Responsible Investment Association Australasia showed in 2019, responsible investment multi-sector growth funds outperformed the mainstream across 1, 3 and 5 year time frames.

Although reflective of a global shift, the push to formalise and embed environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into investment decision making has been stronger in the New Zealand market than many other markets over this past year. As you sit down to do your planning for the year ahead, here are five developments you need to be paying attention to that will shape our industry in 2021.

Mandatory climate risk disclosure