In yet another sign of the growing interest in impact investing, the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment (US SIF) has just released a guide for family offices on impact investing.
The report "captures the 'buzz' about investing for impact among family offices, which is definitely on an upswing, thanks in part to the interest of millennial generation members," said Lisa Woll, CEO of the US SIF and US SIF Foundation, in a statement.
The growing availability of impact investment options and increasing evidence that such investments can achieve comparable or better results than conventional investments also underlie the growing interest in sustainable and responsible investing, according to the US SIF report.
The foundation says there is no definitive data on how many family offices practice sustainable and responsible investing, also known as ESG investing (for environment, social and governance) or just impact investing, but suggests the potential market is huge.
Its biennial survey of social investing trends heard from just a small sample of family offices, which indicated that just $1.5 billion of their assets take into account ESG factors. That's a tiny portion of the estimated $1.7 trillion in assets under management of some 3,000 family offices in the U.S.
Given the potential for much more ESG investing among family offices, the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment included several recommendations and resources in its report:
