1 United Nations Economic and Social Council, “Special Edition: Progress Towards the Sustainable Development Goals,” Report of the Secretary-General, May 2019.
2 Global Impact Investing Network, Annual Impact Investor Survey 2020.
3 Principles for Responsible Investment, “Investing with SDG Outcomes: A Five-Part Framework,” June 15, 2020.
4 United Nations Development Programme, “Impact investment to Close the SDG Funding Gap,” July 2017.
5 CNBC, Yun Li, “Global Stock Market Value Rises to a Record $95 Trillion This Week on Vaccine Hope,” November 12, 2020.
Important Disclosures
Opinions are as of the date of this article 07/17/21 and are subject to change.
The Chief Investment Office (CIO) provides thought leadership on wealth management, investment strategy and global markets; portfolio management solutions; due diligence; and solutions oversight and data analytics. CIO viewpoints are developed for Bank of America Private Bank, a division of Bank of America, N.A., (“Bank of America”) and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated (“MLPF&S” or “Merrill”), a registered broker-dealer, registered investment adviser and a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America Corporation (“BofA Corp.").
Impact investing and/or Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) managers may take into consideration factors beyond traditional financial information to select securities, which could result in relative investment performance deviating from other strategies or broad market benchmarks, depending on whether such sectors or investments are in or out of favor in the market. Further, ESG strategies may rely on certain values based criteria to eliminate exposures found in similar strategies or broad market benchmarks, which could also result in relative investment performance deviating.