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Shifting the Focus to Measurement: A Review of Socially Responsible Investing and Sustainability Indicators

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Change log

Authors

Koenigsmarck, Markus  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3373-8760
Geissdoerfer, Martin  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0789-4428

Abstract

jats:pAn increasing number of investors is including sustainability considerations in their investment processes. This can improve both financial and corporate sustainability performance. The emergence of sustainable investing as an academic research field has been accompanied by considerable interest from the industry. Despite its importance, there is still no uniform understanding of what a socially responsible investment (SRI) comprises. There is a multitude of similar terms that are not clearly defined and delineated, accompanied by a lack of a uniform understanding of how sustainability should be measured in the investment context. The resulting confusion hinders conceptual clarity, a material barrier for both scholarly and practitioner endeavours in the field. We try to address these issues by conducting a structured literature review based on database searches and cross-reference snowballing. We aim to provide a synthesised and unified definition of SRI and ancillary terms and to draw attention to the exact sustainability measurements. We (1) outline the history of the concept, (2) concisely define SRI and related terms, (3) propose a trinomial sustainability indicator framework (the Cambridge SRI indicator framework) for conceptualisation, and (4) use this framework to provide a structured overview of sustainability indicators for SRIs.</jats:p>

Description

Peer reviewed: True


Funder: Strategic Research Council of the Academy of Finland


Funder: Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft

Keywords

35 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5001 Applied Ethics, 3507 Strategy, Management and Organisational Behaviour

Journal Title

Sustainability

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2071-1050
2071-1050

Volume Title

Publisher

MDPI AG
Sponsorship
EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Industrial Sustainability (EP/I033351/1)
EPSRC Project Business Models for Sustainable Industrial Systems (EP/L019914/1)