Integration of Advanced Sri Practices Into the European Asset Management Industry: A Survey of Drivers

Abstract

Sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) has experienced impressive growth in the last two decades. However, the adoption of advanced SRI strategies that go beyond the mere exclusion of companies or asset classes has not kept pace with this expansion, a critical development regarding its potential impact on sustainability. For this reason, this study aims to identify the main drivers for the adoption of advanced sustainable and responsible investment practices by asset management companies to know why and which companies better advance the strengthening of SRI in the European financial market considering an original combination of different SRI drivers. To investigate which factors seem to be more decisive in adopting more sophisticated SRI practices, we first conducted a survey among fund management companies that manage and/or distribute investment funds in Europe. Second, we used logistic and multivariate regressions as analytical tools for testing the hypotheses. Results show that societal pressures and a formal corporate social responsibility policy are the main drivers for adopting advanced SRI practices by asset management companies.