Indicators of responsible investing

• Responsible investing has grown substantially in the past decade.
• Reporting by the industry is not very informative.
• Double counting and overestimation is the rule rather than the exception.
• Poor data quality may have a negative impact on responsible investment growth.

Responsible investment has witnessed significant changes in the past decade. It is estimated that about one fifth of assets under management in the US and about half of all assets under management in the EU are done on the basis of one of the seven responsible investment strategies. This paper discusses the prevailing responsible investment strategies and assesses the metrics used to account for responsible investment. It appears that the definition of responsible investing results in much degrees of freedom about reporting its size.