From integration to impact – a new investment climate for Germany's SRI landscape

Communicating Sustainable Responsible Investments as Financial Advisors: Engaging Private Investors with Strategic Communication

“…Financial advisors have been ascribed a crucial role for capital markets, particularly in the realm of SRI (e.g., [11,20,21,25,27]). Following the definition by Eurosif, the European association for the promotion of sustainable and responsible investments, SRI can be understood as "a long-term oriented investment approach which integrates ESG factors in the research, analysis and selection process of securities within an investment portfolio.…”

“…Due to their role as diffusion agents, change agents [11,19], or multipliers [21], financial advisors are considered to be gatekeepers (cf. [27]) in informing investors about SRI. Scholars have repeatedly argued that financial advisors could strongly contribute to an increase of sustainable investments, especially among private investors [11,19,20].…”

“…[45]), advisors are more likely to talk about SRI with their clients when the return profile of SRI is high and when they perceive their customers do not have a clear understanding of SRI [20]. Given that the return profile of SRI is comparable to conventional investments by now [41], financial advisors could effectively use their information advantage about SRI vis-à-vis their clients if they received better communication training as well as transparent and clear information about SRI that they could share with their clients [19,27]. What is more, financial advisors usually receive instructions about which investments to sell to their clients by their employers on a regular basis, which in turn determines their renumeration or bonus.…”

“…A large share of investors might have heard about SRI, but they might not be sufficiently knowledgeable about SRI to make investment decisions. This lack of information has been described as a "classic case of asymmetric information" ( [27] p. 46) between clients and sellers of sustainable and responsible investment products. Heinemann and colleagues [11] similarly asserted that "private investors are not fully aware of their alternatives and lack orientation in the selection process" (p. 13).…”

Does Ethical Reinforcement Pay? Evidence from the Canadian Mutual Fund Industry in the Post‐Financial Crisis Era

“…We focus on the Canadian mutual funds industry first because of the total assets under management exceeded $1.1 trillion by the end of 2013 and its significant growth in the past 20 years. Second, the SRI segment of this market is considered one of the largest retail markets in the world (Bauer et al ; Social Investment Organization ), which is similar to the total assets under management at the end of 2010 in Germany (Steiauf and Schäfer ) . Third, the Canadian SRI mutual fund industry has attracted little attention in literature.…”