Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
The need for socially responsible investing has never been more immediate, since sustainability is a growing concern for both the public and private sectors. So how are they addressing it? Businesses and investors are both responding to these pressures and opportunities by incorporating ESG into their investment decision-making process.
ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investments, also known as socially responsible investments (SRI), refer to financial options that focus on sustainable investing. Understanding ESG helps you determine the type and level of exposure you want in your portfolio.
What is ESG, and why is it important?
ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance. It's an assessment of ethical behavior within the context of an organization, including the integrity of its governance process. Often, it's scored by quantifying social and environmental performance against internal objectives or comparable industries.
A company's ESG performance is critical to its credibility, with implications ranging from rating agency concerns to investor views. ESG factors are particularly important in the long term, given that they help sustain overall shareholder value over time.
What Is ESG Investing?
ESG investing refers to the proactive integration of environmental, social matters, and governance aspects into investment analysis.
Although ESG criteria are by no means a substitute for financial analysis, investors can now look at ESG ratings to help inform them of the ethics of the companies they are investing in by quantifying measurements on issues of concern, such as pollution prevention, supply chain transparency, diversity programs, and executive pay ratios.
These factors can lead to sound investments that help perpetuate a positive impact on the world. ESG funds that contain stocks that meet the ESG criteria have the potential to maximize returns for people who are interested in sustainable investing.

What Are ESG Funds?
ESG funds hold both equities and bonds that have been screened for their contribution to environmental protection, social justice, and corporate governance. These sustainability-focused investment products have been shown to perform well relative to the broader markets.
What does ESG mean for business?
Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) matters are either directly or indirectly pertinent to business success. Using ESG criteria in investment decisions is becoming all the more important as companies are now required to be responsible stewards of their shareholders' capital.
ESG criteria are also increasingly used in screening or selection of investment opportunities by financial institutions. A company's high rankings in key ESG categories can attract investors, improve its public image, and increase its profitability.

What is the ESG movement?
The ESG movement represents an investment style that aims to examine how companies contribute to social welfare and the environment before advancing literal capital.
This includes reasons such as investors wanting to see their money put towards companies that will have a positive social or environmental impact, to just wanting to minimize the harm that their investments have by funding things that will help protect communities and ecosystems.
What is an ESG message?
An ESG message details how the company communicates to investors, stakeholders, and the public about its ESG strategy, performance, and results.
It serves as an internal compass to assure all company executives are consistently conveying one unified message. It includes basic messaging guidelines about company leadership, key progress indicators, best practices for communicating with investors or engaging in shareholder discussions related to ESGs, and metrics used to monitor the achievement of corporate goals.
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