The environmental, social, and governance (ESG) dimension of firms in which social responsible investment (SRI) and conventional pension funds invest: the mainstream SRI and the ESG inclusion

Alda, Mercedes (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Resumen: This study seeks to understand whether the mainstream SRI leads to similar investment decisions in conventional and SRI pension funds. The SRI is expanding beyond specialised SRI funds and increasingly conventional pension funds are integrating firms with certain ESG criteria, in line with legitimacy-theory premises. This phenomenon raises the questions whether SRI and conventional portfolios are converging and whether SRI funds preserve their ethical essence. Using fund holdings and ESG-stock scores, we examine the inclusion level of ESG firms by UK conventional and SRI domestic equity pension funds, taking into account the investment in controversial (socially-sensitive) firms (i.e. related to tobacco, alcohol, or gambling industries, among others). We find that conventional funds consider the firms in which SRI funds invest to integrate ESG criteria. Nonetheless, SRI funds maintain larger ESG-firm standards, preserving the ethical purpose, and larger ESG standards in SRI funds do not affect performance. Our results also show that the ESG integration into conventional funds evolves over time.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126812

Año: 2021

Publicado en: Journal of Cleaner Production 298 (2021), 126812 [11 pp.]
ISSN: 0959-6526

Factor impacto JCR: 11.072 (2021)

Categ. JCR: GREEN & SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY rank: 5 / 47 = 0.106 (2021) - Q1 - T1
Categ. JCR: ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES rank: 24 / 279 = 0.086 (2021) - Q1 - T1
Categ. JCR: ENGINEERING, ENVIRONMENTAL rank: 9 / 55 = 0.164 (2021) - Q1 - T1

Factor impacto CITESCORE: 15.8 - Engineering (Q1) - Energy (Q1) - Business, Management and Accounting (Q1) - Environmental Science (Q1)

Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 1.921 - Environmental Science (miscellaneous) (Q1) - Strategy and Management (Q1) - Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (Q1)

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/S38-17R
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MCIU-AEI-FEDER/RTI2018-093483-B-I00
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/UZ/JIUZ-2020-SOC-02

Tipo y forma: Article (PostPrint)

Área (Departamento): Área Economía Finan. y Contab. (Dpto. Contabilidad y Finanzas)