A sustainable investing focus is designed to help maximize long-term returns

Successful ESG investing still relies on all of the basic fundamentals of successful investing but also serves to add an additional layer of evaluation and screening. While a primary factor in ESG investing is financial performance, investors take into consideration a company’s ESG activities and “score” when deciding whether to invest.

ESG investing relies on independent ratings that help investors assess a company’s behavior and policies when it comes to environmental performance, social impact and governance issues. An ESG report assesses how a company’s policies impact environmental, social and corporate governance. It enables a company to be more transparent about the risks and opportunities it faces. ESG reporting encompasses both qualitative disclosures of topics as well as quantitative metrics used to measure a company’s performance against ESG risks, opportunities, and related strategies.