Investment Decisions and ESG - Fund managers' perceptions of ESG information when making investment decisions

Abstract: ESG issues play an increasingly important role in today's societies. As a non-financial component, its place in investment decision-making may be difficult to grasp and thereby applied differently among investors. Combined with new emerging regulation, the questions concerning ESG are in a field of constant development. The aim of this study is to investigate how Swedish institutional investors use ESG information in the investment process and relate it to the new emerging European taxonomy. The study was conducted as a case study, including semi-structured interviews with fund managers from Swedish investment institutions. From our study we find that the fund managers have some common considerations in their usage of ESG information. However, within the boundaries of their respective investment institutions, the managers have a high level of autonomy when deciding what a sustainable investment is, and how they work with the information accessible to them.