Sustainable Alpha: Anatomy of a responsible investment

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Ingrid Dyott is managing director at Neuberger Berman.

Sustainable Alpha features shared conversations with the best minds, portfolio managers and industry leaders working to maximize returns while prioritizing the environment, social and governance factors — what’s become short-handed in the industry as ESG. Sustainable Alpha highlights portfolio approaches and investment trends against the backdrop of broader themes such as resource constraints, policy changes and demographic shifts — all while shedding light on how ESG can impact your investments.

Sustainable Alpha conversations are led by John Wrenn, Senior VP, Investments for UBS. The Wrenn Ferguson Group has a combined experience of 200 years managing over 1.6 billion in assets, offering customized wealth management strategies for individuals, endowments and foundations. View the rest of his conversations with leaders in the sustainable investment community.

Here he's talking with Ingrid Dyott, managing director at Neuberger Berman.

John Wrenn: How has socially responsible investing evolved over time?

Ingrid Dyott: Socially responsible investing has been an investment discipline for decades, initially centered on values and attributes of corporate social responsibility while avoiding products that are perceived to cause societal harm. Since its early inception SRI has significantly expanded its focus to look beyond "avoidance" criteria and now seeks to encompass best in class companies with sustainable and competitive advantages. The notion of integrating environmental, social and governance — ESG — criteria into mainstream investing has increasingly gained popularity as investors have begun to realize that these records are not just important to idealistic investors, but represent key considerations that can have a significant impact on a company's bottom line — now and into the future.