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May 24, 2021
The financial industry has always had an affinity for acronyms, and ESG is one that a diverse group of market participants has readily embraced.
Environmental, social, and governance investing is not an entirely new concept. But the technologies used to develop ESG-oriented strategies have advanced since a small group of institutional and retail investors first sought 50 years ago to closely align their values with their investments. And now this once-niche market segment is opening to a much wider audience.
We at S&P Dow Jones Indices estimate that industrywide assets under management for ESG-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs) increased to $170.4 billion in 2020 from $58.8 billion the prior year. S&P Global Ratings projects sustainability-linked bonds to surpass $700 billion in 2021, while green bond issuance reached nearly $270 billion last year.
As the new Executive Director of the Aspen Institute’s Finance Leaders Fellowship, Kara Gustafson is mobilizing a global community of finance industry leaders for a journey that ignites their passion and directs their skills and talents toward solving some of society’s most complex challenges. Fellows include people like the CEO of S&P Dow Jones Indices, CFO of General Mills, a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, the recently nominated Director of the CyberSecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency for the White House, and the Head of Enforcement at the New York Stock Exchange – just to name a few.
So, what does the finance industry – a sector often knocked for causing harm and distrust – and the leaders of it, have to do with catalyzing positive social change? Kara says: a lot. And she knows first hand what the potential is as a member of the founding team of Goldman Sachs’ corporate philanthropy work: A role she held for fifteen years that transformed the way the big b