The Global Sustainable Investment Alliance, alongside the CFA Institute and Principles for Responsible Investment, have published a new resource aiming to harmonise definitions for responsible investment approaches and bring greater understanding and consistency to terminology used in responsible investment.

The new definitions, outlined in detail in the report, cover five key areas and aim to create greater global alignment and consistency:

✅ Screening (detailed definition on page 3): the application of rules based on defined criteria that determine whether an investment is permissible.
✅ ESG Integration (page 8): ongoing consideration of ESG factors within an investment analysis and decision-making process with the aim to improve risk-adjusted returns.
✅ Thematic Investing (page 12): selecting assets to access specified trends.
✅ Stewardship (page 14): The use of investor rights and influence to protect and enhance overall long-term value for clients and beneficiaries, including the common economic, social and environmental assets on which their interests depend.
✅ Impact Investing (page 19): investing with the intention to generate a positive, measurable social and/or environmental impact alongside a financial return.

Huge thanks to Simon O’Connor, Christopher Fidler, Nathan Fabian and their respective teams at GSIA, CFA Institute and PRI for the huge amount of work on this.

Read the full report here