Sustainable investing is booming. The investment industry is fast approaching a point where one-third of global assets under management are invested with a sustainable objective. But do sustainable investment products do what investors expect them to do? How can an investor tell if their investments are having the social impact they want? Does that impact come at a financial cost? And how can investors weave their way through the web of confusing acronyms, conflicting agency ratings, and the mass of fund offerings, confident that they can recognize and avoid corporate greenwashing? Larry Swedroe and Sam Adams cut through the fog and bring clarity on all of this and more—providing investors with a firm plan for truly sustainable investing. The authors first define sustainable investing, illuminating the differences between ESG, SRI and impact investing, and reveal who is currently investing sustainably and why. They then move on to a comprehensive review of the academic research. What does the data really say about risk and return in sustainable investing? What performance can you genuinely expect from sustainable investments? And how are today’s sustainable investors using their influence to drive positive changes for society and the environment? Finally, this book arms you with a practical guide to investing sustainably, including how to effectively choose your asset allocation strategy, and select the managers and funds through which your money can create the change you want to see in the world. Your Essential Guide to Sustainable Investing is the definitive go-to resource that investors have been waiting for.

This book examines sustainable wealth formation and dynamic decision-making. The global economy experienced a veritable meltdown of asset markets in the years 2007-9, where many funds were overexposed to risky returns and suffered considerable losses. On the other hand, the long-term upswing in the stock market since 2010 has led to asset price booms and some new, but also uneven, wealth formation. In this book a broader set of constraints and guidelines for asset management and wealth accumulation is developed. The authors investigate how wealth formation and the proper management of financial funds can help to adequately buffer income risk and obtain sufficient risk-free income at a later stage of life, while also being socially and environmentally sustainable. The book explores behavioral and institutional rules for decision-making that reflect such constraints and guidelines, without necessarily being optimal in the narrow sense. The authors explain the need for such a dynamic decision-making and dynamic re-balancing of portfolios, by putting forward dynamic programming as an approach to dynamic decision-making that can allow sustainable wealth accumulation and dynamic asset allocation to be successfully integrated. This book provides a clear and comprehensive treatment of asset accumulation and dynamic portfolio models with an emphasis on long term and sustainable wealth formation. An important concern in public debate is the sustainability of our economy and this book employs cutting edge quantitative techniques and models to highlight important facts that cannot be disputed under any reasonable assumptions. It has the potential to become a standard reference for both academic researchers and quantitatively trained practitioners. Eckhard Platen, Professor of Quantitative Finance, University of Technology Sydney, Australia This book should be read by both academics and practitioners alike. The former will find intellectually rigorous discussions and innovative solutions. The latter may find a few of the concepts a bit challenging. Yet, theory and technology are there to help simplify the work of those who worry about what time it is rather than how to make a watch--- but they do need a watch. Jean Brunel, Founder of Brunel Associates and Editor of The Journal of Wealth Management

An interactive assessment tool and companion manual for wealthy families and their financial advisors that analyze the behaviors and knowledge that impact a family’s overall wealth, while also providing best practices needed for improvement The Family Wealth Sustainability Toolkit gives wealthy individuals, family offices, and the financial planners, advisors and wealth managers who counsel them, the tools they need to better assess their wealth sustainability skills. One part assessment software tool and one part companion book, the online Index allows readers to assess their family enterprise across four dimensions of sustainability, while the Manual acts both as a roadmap to analyzing their results and provides a foundation in best practices. The index asks individual family members to assess how much the family, as a unit, utilizes best practices to help build structures, decision making processes, and leadership over generations. The manual shows readers how to reflect on what’s working in their family to build and maintain sustainable wealth and how to fix what isn’t. Throughout both components, the authors emphasize the importance of human, intellectual, and social capital, as well as financial capital, as drivers to sustainability over the long haul. The Family Wealth Sustainability Toolkit: Helps affluent families and their advisors assess how well they are managing wealth now and for the future Evaluates wealth sustainability practices to help readers find out what’s working and what’s not Emphasizes the importance of human, intellectual, and social capital, as well as financial capital, in the quest for wealth sustainability Comprehensive and highly practical, The Family Wealth Sustainability Index carefully explains exactly how affluent families and their financial advisors can best utilize and prepare their wealth now and for generations to come.

To truly be successful, today’s financial advisor must strike the right balance between effectively engaging with his or her clients and finding meaningful ways to maintain their financial security. By framing your mission in this way, you can help your clients clarify their vision, build a plan to achieve it, and manage that plan so they stay on track. Nobody understands this better than authors Timothy Noonan and Matt Smith—two seasoned financial professionals with over five decades of combined experience working in the asset management business. And now, in Someday Rich, they show financial advisors with clients who are rich, or have the opportunity to become rich, how to sustain a client’s desired lifestyle to, and through, retirement. Engaging and informative, Someday Rich provides the context, description, and implementation suggestions for the Personal Asset Liability Model—a process that will allow you to determine a client’s funded status relative to their future spending needs as well as develop and monitor their investment plan accordingly. While the methods in the Personal Asset Liability Model may not have been practically accessible to past advisors with a large number of clients, this model now brings together the technical methods to answer important client questions in a way that is feasible and includes the communication strategies that can make the delivery of the advice model more effective. Along the way, this reliable resource discusses the business of giving good advice and addresses how to incorporate these steps into a client engagement road map. Insights on various other issues associated with this discipline are also included, such as how to develop client trust and deliver personalized service when you have so many clients, and contingency risks—life, health, disability, and long-term care—that need to be considered in the financial planning process. And in later chapters, single-topic essays, contributed by experts in the financial planning field, cover issues ranging from target date funds and the investment aspects of longevity risk to modern portfolio decumulation. Building more valuable relationships with your clients is a difficult endeavor. But with Someday Rich, you’ll discover what it takes to achieve this goal as you put them on a path to a sustainable financial future.

This book explores sustainable wealth management and the challenges that arise for asset managers in times of ecological crises and climate change. It deals with portfolio engineering, combining risk and impact, transitioning from environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concepts to Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) concepts and the different role of the intermediaries and players in the financial markets. It provides researchers, scholars, academics and policy makers an interdisciplinary approach to redirecting capital towards sustainability.

A comprehensive guide to socially responsible investing (SRI) With concerns about climate change increasing among investors, many are looking for opportunities that offer positive social as well as monetary returns. Sustainable Investing for Institutional Investors: Risk, Regulation and Strategies explores the key issues related to "Socially Responsible Investment" (SRI) for institutional investors and trustees, including investment strategies, risk and returns, market data, regulatory frameworks, and more. Looking at all investment classes, including bonds, equities, real estate, commodities, and many others, the book provides an in-depth view of SRI-relevant asset classes to help you decide which is best for you. To better contextualize SRI opportunities and challenges, the book presents 20 case studies involving institutional investors that are currently following a sustainable investment strategy and how they have approached SRI. For business leaders already familiar with or practicing corporate social responsibility and/or environmentally sustainable management, SRI is the next step to turning modern corporations into good citizens, and this book contains everything you need to get started. Provides a comprehensive overview on all aspects of sustainable investing relevant for institutional investors and trustees Explores sustainable investment strategies across all asset classes Includes 20 SRI case studies that show investors at work around the world Features a Foreword by Dr. Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Featuring everything you need to understand and benefit from the opportunities presented by environmentally sustainable investing, Sustainable Investing for Institutional Investors is essential reading for individual investors, their advisors, and anyone interested in making profitable, socially conscious investment choices.