ESG investing assets reached $12tn in 2018 in the US according to the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment’s (US SIF) latest report on investing trends. This represents a 38% increase from 2016 with US institutional investors now contributing $8.6bn of the total. Of this, 54% comes from public funds and 37% from insurance companies.
Hermes Asset Management, Schroders and Impax Asset Management are three of the prominant fund managers running ESG related funds on behalf of pension funds in the US. Total ESG asset in early 2018 stood at $11.6tn, up from $8.1tn in 2016. The US SIF report also found that the main ESG concerns of shareholders were proxy access, corporate political activity and climate change but with environmental and social issues overall now dominating governance concerns.