The US SIF Foundation's 2018 biennial Report on US Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing Trends, released October 2018, found that sustainable, responsible and impact investing (SRI) assets now account for $12.0 trillion—or one in four dollars—of the $46.6 trillion in total assets under professional management in the United States. This represents a 38 percent increase over 2016.

The report is formally being launched at Bloomberg headquarters in New York City. Croatan Institute President and Senior Fellow Joshua Humphreys, as one of the report’s project directors, will participate in a media teleconference with US SIF Foundation’s Lisa Woll and Meg Voorhes, among others.

The Trends Report—first compiled in 1995—is the most comprehensive study of sustainable and impact investing in the United States. From the first report when assets totaled just $639 billion to today, the sustainable and responsible investing industry has grown 18-fold and has matured and expanded across numerous asset classes.

Croatan Institute has been a major research partner for the Trends Report since its founding, and its staff has been involved in the research and writing of the report for over a decade.

Highlights from this years report include:

* Sustainable, responsible and impact investing assets have expanded to $12.0 trillion in the United States, up 38 percent from $8.7 trillion in 2016.

* Much of this growth is driven by asset managers, who now consider environmental, social or corporate governance (ESG) criteria across $11.6 trillion in assets, up 44 percent from $8.1 trillion in 2016.

* The top three issues for asset managers and their institutional investor clients are climate change/carbon, tobacco and conflict risk.

* From 2016 through the first half of 2018, 165 institutional investors and 54 investment managers controlling $1.8 trillion in assets under management (AUM) filed or co-filed shareholder resolutions on ESG issues.