ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to describe the evolution of socially responsible investment (sri), and to reflect on the state of practice and the challenges for sri. It presents the history of sri in the uk in three main stages—the early work of church investors, the launch of ethical investment unit trusts in the mid 1980s and the 'mainstreaming' of sri following the implementation of the sri pensions legislation in 2000. The chapter focuses on the uk, church investors also played a pioneering role in the development of sri in the us, in Canada, on the continent of Europe and in Australia. The earliest ethical investors were the churches on both sides of the Atlantic. Ethical investment grew naturally out of the churches' desire to integrate the management of their financial assets with their beliefs; in so doing they working within a venerable tradition.
