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2021 could be the year that advisors, like many investors and asset managers, embrace sustainable investing or at least consider it seriously.
"Interest has gone up tremendously in 2020," says Jeffrey Gitterman, head of Gitterman Wealth Management, an RIA that specializes in sustainable investing and provides model portfolios to other wealth management firms. "Our climate strategies are the most popular. The transition (to zero emissions) is here and not going away."
Gitterman cited the recent launch of Aladdin Climate, a new feature of BlackRock's Aladdin portfolio management software that helps advisors quantify climate risk and low-carbon opportunities in portfolios, as well as Moody's data on physical climate change risks and MSCI's climate change scenario analysis, provided by Carbon Delta, which it acquired in late 2019.
"The great repricing is coming," Gitterman said. "All data companies and reinsurers are looking at risk not yet priced into the market."
There's no denying that interest in sustainable investments and policies is rising.
US SIF, the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, reports that U.S.-domiciled assets under management using sustainable investing strategies grew from $12 trillion at the start of 2018 to $17.1 trillion at the start of 2020, an increase of 42%.
BlackRock's first sustainable investing survey of several hundred institutional clients in 27 countries with $25 trillion in AUM released in early December found that half expect to double sustainable assets within five years, exemplifying "a tectonic shift in capital towards sustainable assets."
And through the third quarter a record $31 billion flowed into ESG funds while nearly 400 ESG-focused funds launched — including ETFs and open-end funds, according to Morningstar.
"Demand has gotten to the point where most investors could use '40 Act funds to construct a broadly diversified allocated portfolio of sustainable funds," said Jon Hale, Morningstar's global head of sustainability research.
He noted there is increasing number of model portfolios consisting of just ESG funds, including BlackRock's iShares Platform with iShares ESG Aware allocation portfolios, which tend to take a "lightest touch" approach to screening investments.
Beyond such ESG integration strategies are funds that exclude certain companies and sectors to align with investors' values — often called socially responsible investments — and impact funds, focused on investing in assets that will have a positive impact on E, S and/or G issues.
In the meantime, many fund companies, even those that don't have specific ESG funds like T. Rowe Price, have integrated ESG analysis across their portfolios and plan for more sustainable investing offerings, analysis and/or targeted activities on sustainability issues with corporate management through direct engagement and/or proxy votes.
