Socially responsible, green, and faith-based investment strategies: Screening activity matters!

Analyzing more than 200 internationally-investing sustainably screened funds, we find that socially responsible, green, and faith-based investments have to be considered as different approaches within the broader field of sustainable investing. While socially responsible and green funds tend to underperform in non-crisis markets, faith-based funds perform similar to the market and their conventional peers during any market state. We provide evidence that the funds' specific screening activity significantly impacts the financial performance of sustainable investing vehicles in international markets. In particular, social screens lead to the underperformance of socially responsible funds, while energy screens drive the performance of green funds.