Do something good with your money and still generate a return: More and more people are becoming friends with this idea. But there are big differences in sustainable investment products.
Berlin (dpa / tmn) - Sustainable investment is in trend: In 2019, a little more than 269 billion euros were invested in investment products that explicitly set environmental, social and governance criteria in their investment conditions. According to the Sustainable Investment Forum (FNG), this was more than ever before.
For its magazine "Finanztest" (issue 7/2020), Stiftung Warentest has now examined a total of 73 sustainable funds that invest worldwide. Among other things, the testers wanted to know which branches and business practices the providers exclude and whether this also applies to subsidiaries, holdings and suppliers of the companies. One result: the different funds sometimes differ significantly in their investment strategy.
Funds with the strictest criteria are not financially at the forefront
The three sustainable funds best rated by "Finanztest" apply the strictest investment criteria: They only invest in companies that meet certain social, ecological or legal standards. Some of them also get advice from a sustainability advisory board.
However, these funds are not at the top in terms of financial success. However, the fund examined, which delivers the best financial result, does not have quite as strict sustainability criteria. For example, he only excluded fossil fuels to a small extent. Nevertheless, sustainable funds do not fundamentally perform worse than comparable products.
According to the "Finanztest", as a compromise, investors can, for example, invest in an ETF on the sustainable index MSCI World SRI - the last three letters stand for Socially Responsible Investment. A plus point here: the index has so far performed better than the conventional MSCI World Index even in the corona crisis - corresponding sustainable ETFs also developed better.