ABSTRACT
Sustainable investing is becoming mainstream but is still evolving. Asset owners possess immense potential to drive sustainable investment practices but it requires full integration across all dimensions of their investment mandate, investment beliefs and strategy, technology, corporate culture aspects, and change management. Asset owners can play a unique role in promoting sustainable investing in pursuit of both financial self-interest and a more prosperous society at large. Transforming an organization and surmounting barriers is easier said than done. Asset owners tend to have three key resources within the organization – human capital, systems, and processes. The fund’s level of sophistication in these three areas will tend to drive the organization’s decisions about assets, access, and execution. Leading institutions are paving the way, but others have held back. But make no mistake, it is urgent that asset owners step up to the plate because “past performance is no guarantee of future results,” and both society and the planet find themselves increasingly beleaguered.
