Chapter 4 - Sustainable investing ETFs: European market

Abstract

This chapter covers the exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with the sustainable investing focus available in the European countries, including the subsector of the ESG investment funds. The chapter starts with a brief presentation of the global sustainable investing industry, followed by a similar discussion of the European industry—the sizes of the industries, their structures, and key trends are presented. In the third part of the chapter, the issue of the European sustainable investment funds is addressed. The next covered issue is the outline of the European ETFs market—fundamental information concerning the size and structure of the market is provided, based on the most up-to-date evidence available. The core part of the chapter is devoted to the discussion of the results of the multidimensional analysis of the sustainable investing ETFs in Europe. The analysis, conducted both on the regional and country level, covers the issues such as the size of the market in terms of the assets managed, number of the funds, and the structure with regard to, among others, the providers of the funds. Additionally, the diffusion models are applied to examine the spread of ESG funds regarded as an innovative category of ETFs. The next part of the chapter is the third case study, concerning the ESG ETFs in one of the largest ETFs markets globally, that is, the United Kingdom. In the final section, French sustainable investing ETFs market is analyzed as the fourth case study and one of the regional leaders in terms of both the overall assets of ETFs and the size of the ESG segment.