ESG for All? The Impact of ESG Screening on Return, Risk and Diversification

Tim Verheyden, Robert G. Eccles, Andreas Feiner

2016 | Academic | Portfolio Construction, Risk & Performance

 The authors report “an unequivocally positive” contribution to risk‐adjusted returns when using a 10% best‐in‐class ESG screening approach (one that effectively removes companies with the lowest 10% of ESG rankings), both on a global and a developed markets universe. More specifically, as a result of such screening, both the global and developed markets portfolios show higher returns, lower (tail) risk, and no significant reduction of diversification potential despite the reduction in the number of companies.