Document summary
A history of sustainable investing, corporate social responsibility and the emergence of new techniques and concepts such as integrated reporting are outlined. How sustainable investing factors have been correlated with superior risk adjusted returns in terms of capital costs and financial performance at a security/market index and fund level are analysed. The conclusion is there is a positive correlation in a majority of security studies, particularly those looking at securities rating highly with regard to corporate social responsibility and/or ESG. SRI investment funds though have clearly struggled more to capture superior returns, with mostly neutral or mixed results regarding outperformance.