Market development

Sustainable investment is not a short-lived fashion, but a long-term trend for the future. Sustainable investors think long term, and are not distracted by negative short-term market trends. More and more investors are putting their faith in this strategy, as evidenced by the volume growth of sustainability funds in Switzerland. The complete study about sustainable investment products in Switzerland can be found here.

(Source: INA (2007); "Swiss SRI Market Survey per end of December 2006")

As the next chart shows, there has also been a huge proliferation of sustainable investment products in recent years: In Europe, for example, the number of retail sustainable investment funds on offer rose from 159 to 375 just in the six years from 1999 to 2005.

(Source: Avanzi SRI Research (2006); "Green, social and ethical funds in Europe")

An increasing number of institutional investors are also recognising the value of sustainable investments. In 2003 as much as EUR 34 billion was already being managed in a sustainable way, i.e. using negative and positive criteria. If purely the application of negative criteria is considered, this figure comes to EUR 218 billion.

Links to other sites

For an overview of the sustainability funds offered in Germany, go to:
www.sustainable-investment.org

An overview of the European market for sustainability funds for private clients is available from Avanzi SRI Research.

Institutional investors will find a very interesting report on the European market on the European Social Investment Forum (EUROSIF) site.

You can see how the market for socially responsible investment is developing in the US in the latest Trendreport on the homepage of the Social Investment Forum.