Sustainable investing interest growing globally, Morgan Stanley says

investmentnews.com:

Interest in sustainable investing among individual investors globally is surging – and American investors are leading the way on several fronts, according to a new report from Morgan Stanley.

The “Sustainable Signals” report, published by Institute for Sustainable Investing and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, draws from a survey of 2,820 active individual investors across the US, Europe, and Japan.

“Nearly 80% of individual investors believe that it is possible to balance market rate financial returns with a focus on sustainability,” Jessica Alsford, Morgan Stanley’s chief sustainability officer and CEO of the Institute for Sustainable Investing, said in a statement. “A majority of individual investors also express a desire for their investments to advance positive environmental and social impact, creating opportunities for finance professionals to meet these needs.”

Globally, 77 percent of investors expressed interest in sustainable investments, with 57 percent reporting an increased interest over the past two years. Furthermore, 54 percent of respondents anticipate increasing their sustainable investment allocations in the coming year.

This interest is particularly pronounced in the US, where 84 percent of individual investors are keen on sustainable investing. This enthusiasm is most notable among millennials (96 percent) and Generation Xers (91 percent), as well as among Hispanic/Latino (91 percent), Black (89 percent), LGBTQ+ (89 percent), and female (87 percent) investors.

American investors also tend to allocate a larger portion of their portfolios to sustainable investments compared to their counterparts abroad, with 19 percent of Americans having more than half of their portfolio in sustainable investments.