Legitimacy and the extraordinary growth of ESG measures and metrics in the global investment management industry

Gordon L Clark and Adam D Dixon
Additional contact information
Gordon L Clark: Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, 6396University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Adam D Dixon: Edinburgh Business School, 5211Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK

Environment and Planning A, 2024, vol. 56, issue 2, 645-661

Abstract: ESG metrics are increasingly important in the global investment management industry. Why this came to pass given the limited appetite for responsible investing in the industry is the subject of this paper. Although the business case for ESG provides an explanation for its increasing uptake whereby market actors are increasingly convinced of the merits of ESG as a profit centre, this explanation is insufficient. By contrast, the adoption the ESG programme offers a means of rewriting the terms of risk management and value creation that while grounded in the business case also serve to address challenges to the legitimacy of the global asset management industry. These developments are illustrated in a case study of the establishment and growth of TruCost and its purchase by S&P Global in 2016.

Keywords: Asset management; ESG metrics; finance; legitimacy; sustainable finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X231155484 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:56:y:2024:i:2:p:645-661

DOI: 10.1177/0308518X231155484

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().