SRI an animal that.....: FT article

January 18, 2010

Today’s Financial Times FM covers an article written by Willem Appel and Marjan van den Belt of Roodhals Capital and Wouter Scheepens of Triple Value. The article says that Socially Responsible Investing is a niche strategy that may be holding back sustainable investing. In the article we claim mainstream investors should look beyond the narrow emotionally-led drivers attached to the ethical undertow of SRI and explore sustainable development from a broader systemic perspective. Integrating externalities, such as climate change, or social standards, offers sophisticated investors differentiating opportunities. Also, externalities, once they become part of the economic model or business equation, will affect most companies one way or another, some offering a new opportunity while others could pose a threat to the business model. Judging by the amount of corporate policy making and strategising that currently abounds, sustainability is evolving towards a performance driver at boardroom level. Investors should follow suit. The article concludes: “It is up to mainstream investors to break the self-proclaimed monopoly of SRI on sustainable investment. This would likely contribute to the investor’s financial bottom line and simultaneously deliver higher societal returns.”

You can find the article under our english news items, but also here in the FT

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