ESG Data: Mainstream Consumption, Bigger Spending

Unclear definition and heterogeneous regulations

The term “responsible investment” covers a broad swath, including SRI, ESG investment, ethical or impact investing that are used interchangeably to define an approach to investing that aims to incorporate ESG factors into investment decisions, to better manage risk and generate viable, long-term returns. In spite of SRI’s significant growth over the past 10 years or so, there isn’t a commonly accepted definition of the phrase or, even more, the approach. This lack of clarity is notably due to highly heterogeneous regulations around the globe: The European Union is seemingly the pioneer of extra-financial reporting requirements that reveal non-financial information indicating how companies manage social and environmental issues, followed by Japan that introduced regulations more recently, and with the US and China bringing up the rear.

Opimas also notices that the implementation of responsible investment strategies differs by region: while Europe is dominated by exclusionary screening, the US and Asia use ESG integration, aiming at the positive inclusion of some ESG factors in investment analysis. Yet corporate engagement, where shareholders enter into discussions with company management to change or influence the way a company is run, is dominant in Japan.

Numerous international initiatives such as the United Nations Principles for Responsible investment, UN Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiative have emerged to make clear what constitutes responsible investment and to promote it through the support of extra-financial reporting. Nevertheless, responsible investment still covers a wide range of approaches implying a diversity of strategies for asset managers that span a minimal exclusionary approach to an active inclusion of extra-financial criteria in their management. Whether they use basic or sophisticated approaches, a large and growing number of asset managers offer responsible investment products in response to investors’ increasing demand.

Growing market for responsible investment

The responsible investment market is skyrocketing, driven by a growing share of investors and companies implementing strategies that include ESG criteria. With $23 trillion in assets under management in 2016, we estimate the responsible investment market grew to more than $30 trillion in 2018, with half of assets located in Europe. We expect this amount to rise to $35 trillion by 2020.

Major traditional institutional investors—pension funds, insurers and asset managers—have already embraced the approach, with Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund and Europe’s Amundi, for example, integrating ESG factors across the investment process and proxy-voting practices. This trend is also very strong in the exchange-traded fund (ETF) space, with a flourishing number of ESG ETFs over the last several years that have seen exponential growth of assets under management.

This massive shift has generated a growing demand for ESG data as the foundation on which to build a responsible investment strategy.

ESG data is going mainstream

The size of the ESG data market is growing fast, and we expect this trend to continue. We estimate the total spending on ESG data, including ESG content and indices, at $505 million in 2018 and that it will reach $745 million by 2020 (see Figure 1).

FIGURE 1. ESG DATA MARKET ESTIMATES