The Low‐carbon Equity Market: A New Alternative for Investment Diversification?

Abstract

Recent decades have been marked by a change in business management models in such a way that they do not simply accommodate the financial perspective, but also stakeholders diverse viewpoints. This change is embodied in several research works (e.g., Agle, 2008;Wood, 2008) that question Friedman's (1970) proposal, according to which the mission of a company is to maximize shareholder value.Concerns about global warming and climate change, the environment, the scarcity of water, issues related to human rights and poverty, and financial crises among other factors, have helped to validate the theme of sustainability among stakeholders because, in strategic terms, it can also bring added value to the business itself (Elijido-Ten & Clarkson, 2019;KPMG, 2011;Porter & Kramer, 2006;Vives & Wadhwa, 2012). This greater awareness also extends to the financial sector, which -like investors -includes carbon-risk exposure in its decision making (Herbohn et al. 2019;Mace et al. 2021).Sustainable investment, also called socially responsible investment or ethical investment, is based on the idea of the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit), according to which a company's results should not be measured exclusively by the yardstick of conventional financial criteria, but should also consider non-financial criteria (Brzeszczynski & McIntosh, 2014;Renneboog et al. 2008); namely social (labour and human rights, health and safety, and community relations, among others), governance (good governance, ethical issues, accountability, bribes and corruption, among others), and environmental (biodiversity, water management, pollution, and climate change, among others) criteria. With regard to environmental objectives,