IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/cesisp/0499.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A study of green European equity fund portfolio allocations

Author

Listed:
  • Sanctuary, Mark

    (KTH Royal Institute of Technology & IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute)

  • Lavenius, Axel

    (IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute)

  • Parlato, Giorgio

    (Stockholm University)

  • Plue, Jan

    (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)

  • Crona, Beatrice

    (Stockholm University)

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which the portfolios of green funds differ from conventional funds. We use non-metric multidimensional scaling to analyse 24 549 securities held by 6888 funds traded on European markets as of March 2023. Thisnumerical methodology reduces the fund compositional matrix from thousands ofdimensions to two dimensions, revealing patterns that can be studied graphically.Each fund is classified into three categories by the EU Taxonomy: dark-green,light-green, or conventional funds. With a few exceptions, the results indicate thatthe compositional differences in fund holdings across these three types of funds aresmall: green fund portfolios are largely the same as conventional fund portfolios. Anotable exception are energy sector funds where we find compositional differencesin the holdings of green and conventional funds. Our findings suggest that the EU’sregulatory effort on sustainable finance has not yet delivered on anti-greenwashingobjectives, and that ESG based investing is doin ittle to shift fund allocations.

Suggested Citation

  • Sanctuary, Mark & Lavenius, Axel & Parlato, Giorgio & Plue, Jan & Crona, Beatrice, 2024. "A study of green European equity fund portfolio allocations," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 499, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0499
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://static.sys.kth.se/itm/wp/cesis/cesiswp499.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Markus Ibert & Ron Kaniel & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Roine Vestman, 2018. "Are Mutual Fund Managers Paid for Investment Skill?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(2), pages 715-772.
    2. Joliet, Robert & Titova, Yulia, 2018. "Equity SRI funds vacillate between ethics and money: An analysis of the funds’ stock holding decisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 70-86.
    3. K. J. Martijn Cremers & Antti Petajisto, 2009. "How Active Is Your Fund Manager? A New Measure That Predicts Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(9), pages 3329-3365, September.
    4. Martijn Cremers & Antti Petajisto, 2006. "How Active is Your Fund Manager? A New Measure That Predicts Performance," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2370, Yale School of Management, revised 01 May 2009.
    5. Federica Ielasi & Monica Rossolini & Sara Limberti, 2018. "Sustainability-themed mutual funds: an empirical examination of risk and performance," Journal of Risk Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 19(3), pages 247-261, August.
    6. Florian Berg & Julian F Kölbel & Roberto Rigobon, 2022. "Aggregate Confusion: The Divergence of ESG Ratings [Corporate social responsibility and firm risk: theory and empirical evidence]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(6), pages 1315-1344.
    7. Sabastian Utz & Maximillian Wimmer, 2014. "Are they any good at all? A financial and ethical analysis of socially responsible mutual funds," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 15(1), pages 72-82, February.
    8. Aneesh Raghunandan & Shiva Rajgopal, 2022. "Do ESG funds make stakeholder-friendly investments?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 822-863, September.
    9. Alexander Kempf & Peer Osthoff, 2008. "SRI Funds: Nomen est Omen," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(9‐10), pages 1276-1294, November.
    10. Cremers, Martijn & Ferreira, Miguel A. & Matos, Pedro & Starks, Laura, 2016. "Indexing and active fund management: International evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 539-560.
    11. Martijn Cremers & Antti Petajisto, 2006. "How Active is Your Fund Manager? A New Measure That Predicts Performance," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2370, Yale School of Management, revised 01 May 2009.
    12. Sakis Kotsantonis & George Serafeim, 2019. "Four Things No One Will Tell You About ESG Data," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 31(2), pages 50-58, June.
    13. Linlin Ma & Yuehua Tang & Juan‐Pedro Gómez, 2019. "Portfolio Manager Compensation in the U.S. Mutual Fund Industry," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(2), pages 587-638, April.
    14. Alexander Kempf & Peer Osthoff, 2008. "SRI Funds: Nomen est Omen," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(9-10), pages 1276-1294.
    15. Chinco, Alex & Sammon, Marco, 2024. "The passive ownership share is double what you think it is," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    16. Aaron K. Chatterji & Rodolphe Durand & David I. Levine & Samuel Touboul, 2016. "Do ratings of firms converge? Implications for managers, investors and strategy researchers," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(8), pages 1597-1614, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rajna Gibson Brandon & Simon Glossner & Philipp Krueger & Pedro Matos & Tom Steffen, 2022. "Do Responsible Investors Invest Responsibly? [Why and how investors use ESG information: evidence from a global survey]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(6), pages 1389-1432.
    2. Boermans, Martijn A. & Galema, Rients, 2019. "Are pension funds actively decarbonizing their portfolios?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 50-60.
    3. Chernenko, Sergey & Sunderam, Adi, 2020. "Do fire sales create externalities?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 602-628.
    4. Li, C. Wei & Tiwari, Ashish & Tong, Lin, 2022. "Mutual fund tournaments and fund Active Share," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    5. Scheld, Dominik & Stolper, Oscar, 2023. "Leveling the playing field? The effect of disclosing fund manager activeness to individual investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    6. Feldman, David & Saxena, Konark & Xu, Jingrui, 2020. "Is the active fund management industry concentrated enough?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 23-43.
    7. Bai, John Jianqiu & Tang, Yuehua & Wan, Chi & Yüksel, H. Zafer, 2022. "Fund manager skill in an era of globalization: Offshore concentration and fund performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 18-40.
    8. Juan C. Reboredo & Luis A. Otero González, 2022. "Low carbon transition risk in mutual fund portfolios: Managerial involvement and performance effects," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 950-968, March.
    9. Martijn Boermans & Ian Cooper & Piet Sercu & Rosanne Vanpée, 2022. "Foreign bias in equity portfolios: Informational advantage or familiarity bias?," Working Papers 742, DNB.
    10. Beggs, William & DeVault, Luke, 2022. "Mutual fund (sub)advisor connections and crowds," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 231-252.
    11. Michael Sockin & Mindy Z Xiaolan, 2023. "Delegated Learning and Contract Commonality in Asset Management," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(6), pages 1931-1975.
    12. Roy, Suvra & Nguyen, Harvey & Visaltanachoti, Nuttawat, 2023. "Be nice to the air: Severe haze pollution and mutual fund risk," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    13. Lee, John Byong-Tek & Ma, Jun & Margaritis, Dimitris & Yang, Wanyi, 2023. "Is anti-herding always a smart choice? Evidence from mutual funds," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    14. Dumitrescu, Ariadna & Järvinen, Jesse & Zakriya, Mohammed, 2023. "Hidden Gem or Fool’s Gold: Can passive ESG ETFs outperform the benchmarks?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    15. Kaniel, Ron & Lin, Zihan & Pelger, Markus & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn, 2023. "Machine-learning the skill of mutual fund managers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(1), pages 94-138.
    16. Mark Fedenia & Hilla Skiba & Tatyana Sokolyk, 2023. "The performance of active investment positions in foreign markets," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 54(2), pages 285-305, March.
    17. Yue Xu, 2022. "Reallocation of Mutual Fund Managers and Capital Raising Ability," CREATES Research Papers 2022-11, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    18. Henke, Hans-Martin, 2016. "The effect of social screening on bond mutual fund performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 69-84.
    19. Carneiro, Livia Mendes & Eid Junior, William & Yoshinaga, Claudia Emiko, 2022. "The implications of passive investments for active fund management: International evidence," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    20. Dannhauser, Caitlin D. & Spilker, Harold D., 2023. "The Modern Mutual Fund Family," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 1-20.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sustainable finance; investment funds; ESG; Non-metric multidimensional scaling; ordination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D53 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Financial Markets
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0499. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Vardan Hovsepyan (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cekthse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.