Investing for Change: Profit from Responsible Investment

Academics turned portfolio managers, Landier and Nair offer up evidence for socially responsible investing's potential for financial gain and real social change, highlighting how returns, risks and goals differ in ethical investing. The book traces the evolution of socially responsible investing (SRI) from its 18th-century Quaker roots to the first socially responsible mutual fund, 37-year-old Pax World, and finally to more recent “responsibility indices” and the increasing availability of corporate sustainability reports. The authors wisely credit the growing influence of “the corporate governance movement”, the increasing number of socially responsible mutual funds, large public pension funds' interest in “responsibility issues,” and the “dynamic regulatory landscape” for pushing change on environmental, human rights and other social fronts, making an ethical investment approach a viable option. The authors assess the research on stock returns in ethical investing and the trade-offs for one's principles, projecting that a more balanced socially responsible investment portfolio can grow close to industry averages on the S&P 500, for example, and better than benchmark portfolios. While the fictitious investors in the book grate, its appeal to “invest in who you are” is genuinely persuasive. (Dec.)