IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i23p9855-d450897.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Valuation of the Environmental Effects of Socially Responsible Investments in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Bogna Janik

    (Department of Finance and Banking, WSB University in Poznan, 61-874 Poznan, Poland)

  • Katarzyna Maruszewska

    (Department of Finance and Banking, WSB University in Poznan, 61-874 Poznan, Poland)

Abstract

This paper evaluated the environmental effects of socially responsible investments (SRIs) in European countries and analyzed the differentiation between them in terms of SRIs and selected features in the environmental dimension. The first section of the paper discusses contemporary trends in Europe and in certain European countries, whilst the second compares SR environmental investments and environmental factors in selected European countries from a multidimensional perspective. The aim of the study was to identify and evaluate these trends as well as to find similarities and differences between European countries, and subsequently to indicate groups of countries with similar approaches to pro-ecological investments. In order to solve the problem, descriptive and multidimensional statistical methods were used, namely correspondence analysis (CA). Although the research results clearly revealed upward tendencies in the volume of SR environmental investments in the analyzed period, they nonetheless represent a relatively low share in the total number of socially responsible investments. The overall growth in SRIs in Europe may have resulted from the more intense activities of policymakers in some countries as a consequence of concluding agreements reached during the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in 2015. The results of the study also revealed no significant correlations between SR environmental investments and environmental variables among the European countries analyzed; hence, there is no substantial evidence that investors’ assets contribute to the improvement of the environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Bogna Janik & Katarzyna Maruszewska, 2020. "Valuation of the Environmental Effects of Socially Responsible Investments in Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-18, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:23:p:9855-:d:450897
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/9855/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/9855/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George Marbuah, 2019. "Is willingness to contribute for environmental protection in Sweden affected by social capital?," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 21(3), pages 451-475, July.
    2. Lund, Henrik, 2007. "Renewable energy strategies for sustainable development," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 912-919.
    3. Torgler, Benno & Garcia-Valinas, Maria A., 2007. "The determinants of individuals' attitudes towards preventing environmental damage," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2-3), pages 536-552, August.
    4. Esty, Daniel C. & Porter, Michael E., 2005. "National environmental performance: an empirical analysis of policy results and determinants," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(4), pages 391-434, August.
    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. Hood, Christopher & Rothstein, Henry & Baldwin, Robert, 2004. "The Government of Risk: Understanding Risk Regulation Regimes," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199270019.
    7. Federica Ielasi & Monica Rossolini, 2019. "Responsible or Thematic? The True Nature of Sustainability-Themed Mutual Funds," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-17, June.
    8. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1996. "Multifactor Explanations of Asset Pricing Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 55-84, March.
    9. Lund, H. & Mathiesen, B.V., 2009. "Energy system analysis of 100% renewable energy systems—The case of Denmark in years 2030 and 2050," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 524-531.
    10. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    11. Muhammad Haseeb & Irwan Shah Zainal Abidin & Qazi Muhammad Adnan Hye & Nira Hariyatie Hartani, 2019. "The Impact of Renewable Energy on Economic Well-Being of Malaysia: Fresh Evidence from Auto Regressive Distributed Lag Bound Testing Approach," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 9(1), pages 269-275.
    12. Wustenhagen, Rolf & Wolsink, Maarten & Burer, Mary Jean, 2007. "Social acceptance of renewable energy innovation: An introduction to the concept," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2683-2691, May.
    13. Unknown, 2016. "Energy for Sustainable Development," Conference Proceedings 253270, Guru Arjan Dev Institute of Development Studies (IDSAsr).
    14. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    15. C. Edward Chang & Walt A. Nelson & H. Doug Witte, 2012. "Do green mutual funds perform well?," Management Research Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(8), pages 693-708, July.
    16. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    17. Esty, Daniel C. & Porter, Michael E., 2005. "National environmental performance: an empirical analysis of policy results and determinants," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(4), pages 381-389, August.
    18. Gaurav Talan & Gagan Deep Sharma, 2019. "Doing Well by Doing Good: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda for Sustainable Investment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-16, January.
    19. Francisco Climent & Pilar Soriano, 2011. "Green and Good? The Investment Performance of US Environmental Mutual Funds," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 103(2), pages 275-287, October.
    20. Robert D. Klassen & Curtis P. McLaughlin, 1996. "The Impact of Environmental Management on Firm Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(8), pages 1199-1214, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xiaoting Ling & Lijuan Yan & Deming Dai, 2022. "Green Credit Policy and Investment Decisions: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-22, June.
    2. Stanley Y. B. Huang & Shih-Chin Lee & Yue-Shi Lee, 2021. "Constructing an Adoption Model of Proactive Environmental Strategy: A Novel Quantitative Method of the Multi-Level Growth Curve Model," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(16), pages 1-9, August.

    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. Urs von Arx & Andreas Ziegler, 2008. "The Effect of CSR on Stock Performance: New Evidence for the USA and Europe," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 08/85, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    2. Federica Ielasi & Monica Rossolini, 2019. "Responsible or Thematic? The True Nature of Sustainability-Themed Mutual Funds," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-17, June.
    3. Eun, Cheol & Lee, Kyuseok & Wei, Fengrong, 2023. "Dual role of the country factors in international asset pricing: The local factors and proxies for the global factors," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Tobias J. Moskowitz & Mark Grinblatt, 2002. "What Do We Really Know About the Cross-Sectional Relation Between Past and Expected Returns?," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm259, Yale School of Management.
    5. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2022. "Salience theory and the cross-section of stock returns: International and further evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 689-725.
    6. Ciciretti, Rocco & Dalò, Ambrogio & Dam, Lammertjan, 2023. "The contributions of betas versus characteristics to the ESG premium," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 104-124.
    7. Zura Kakushadze, 2014. "4-Factor Model for Overnight Returns," Papers 1410.5513, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2015.
    8. Cakici, Nusret & Tang, Yi & Yan, An, 2016. "Do the size, value, and momentum factors drive stock returns in emerging markets?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 179-204.
    9. Brav, Alon & Geczy, Christopher & Gompers, Paul A., 2000. "Is the abnormal return following equity issuances anomalous?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 209-249, May.
    10. Linnenluecke, Martina K. & Chen, Xiaoyan & Ling, Xin & Smith, Tom & Zhu, Yushu, 2017. "Research in finance: A review of influential publications and a research agenda," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 188-199.
    11. Farruggio, Christian & Michalak, Tobias C. & Uhde, Andre, 2013. "The light and dark side of TARP," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2586-2604.
    12. Keith Lam & Frank Li, 2008. "The risk premiums of the four-factor asset pricing model in the Hong Kong stock market," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(20), pages 1667-1680.
    13. Bauer, Rob & Koedijk, Kees & Otten, Roger, 2005. "International evidence on ethical mutual fund performance and investment style," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(7), pages 1751-1767, July.
    14. Shaun Bond & Chen Xue, 2017. "The Cross Section of Expected Real Estate Returns: Insights from Investment-Based Asset Pricing," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 403-428, April.
    15. Louis K. C. Chan & Stephen G. Dimmock & Josef Lakonishok, 2009. "Benchmarking Money Manager Performance: Issues and Evidence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4553-4599, November.
    16. Stefan Nagel, 2013. "Empirical Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 167-199, November.
    17. Israel, Ronen & Moskowitz, Tobias J., 2013. "The role of shorting, firm size, and time on market anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 275-301.
    18. repec:hal:journl:dumas-00934738 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. David Hirshleifer & Kewei Hou & Siew Hong Teoh, 2012. "The Accrual Anomaly: Risk or Mispricing?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 320-335, February.
    20. Fernando Rubio, 2005. "Estrategias Cuantitativas De Valor Y Retornos Por Accion De Largo," Finance 0503029, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Wang, Yuming & Ma, Jinpeng, 2014. "Excess volatility and the cross-section of stock returns," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 1-16.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:23:p:9855-:d:450897. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.