SRI Asset Growth Outpaces Other Managed Investments

Total socially responsible investment assets rose more than 258% from $639 billion in 1995 to $2.29 trillion in 2005, while the broader universe of assets under professional management increased less than 249% from $7 trillion to $24.4 trillion over the same period, the Forum announced in its press release.

According to the report, the $2.29 trillion in total assets under management using one or more of the three core socially responsible investing strategies – screening, shareholder advocacy, and community investing – is up from a total of $2.16 trillion in 2003. Other signs of an ongoing growth from 2003 to 2005 in socially responsible investing, according to the announcement, include: an 18.5% increase in assets invested in SRI mutual funds; a 16% jump in social and corporate governance shareholder resolutions; and a 40% boost in funds invested in community investing.

Other highlights of the report include:

• Nearly one out of every ten dollars under professional management in the United States today is involved in socially responsible investing. The $2.29 trillion in SRI identified in 2005 reflects 9.4% of the $24.4 trillion in total assets under professional management tracked in Nelson Information’s Directory of Investment Managers.
• Assets in socially screened mutual funds and other pooled products rose to $179 billion in 2005, an 18.5% increase over the $151 billion tracked in 2003. Over the same period, the number of mutual funds and pooled products tracked edged up from 200 to 201. In 1995, $12 billion in assets were found in socially screened funds.
• Socially and environmentally screened mutual funds have experienced substantial growth in the number and diversity of products and screens offered.
• With more than $1.5 trillion in assets, socially screened separate accounts managed for individual and institutional clients constituted the bulk of SRI assets tracked in 2005, including $17.3 billion managed for individual clients and another $1.49 trillion under management in institutional client accounts. SRI separate account assets have increased 10-fold from the $150 billion identified in 1995.
• Mainstream money managers are increasingly incorporating social and environmental factors into their investing.
• Shareholder resolutions on social and environmental issues increased more than 16% from 299 proposals in 2003 to 348 in 2005. Social resolutions reaching a vote rose more than 22%, from 145 in 2003 to 177 in 2005. Institutional investors that filed or co-filed resolutions on social or environmental issues controlled $703 billion in assets in 2005, a 57% rise over the $448 billion in assets counted in 2003.
• Assets in community investing institutions rose 40% from $14 billion in 2003 to $20 billion in 2005. Community investing assets have nearly quintupled from the $4 billion identified a decade ago.

A copy of the report is  here .