By Céline Louche

Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) has gained significant interest among the financial community but also public authorities and academics. SRI is an activity that combines investment strategies to bring together the three dimensions of Corporate Social Responsibility, namely social, environmental and economic aspects. It does not only seek to maximize financial return but also social good. But SRI is still facing a number of challenges that it needs to address to further develop and enable change towards sustainability. Among them:

• redefining the notion of ‘success’ to fully integrate extra financial matters
• integrate ‘forward looking’ criteria
• integrate the national and cultural differences
• develop tools to measure sustainability risks and rewards

As of today SRI has mainly been applied to equities. The challenge is to expand SRI principles to other asset classes and develop a theory that applies SRI to all asset classes.

Read the full article (pdf, 13 kB) by Céline Louche on "Investissement socialement responsable: véhicule d'action et de changement pour le développement durable?". (in French)

Some of the challenges are discussed on "The Acting Place" (in French). 

Website of the World Forum for Sustainable Economy (Lille, France).