Over the past twenty years, the return on high ESG stocks has not exceeded the market return. This conflicts with the claim of some academics and asset managers that sustainable investing yields more financially. Mathijs van Dijk, Professor of Financial Markets at RSM, joins the discussion about high esg-scores.
“There is little reason to be optimistic about the claim that high esg-scores lead to higher returns. At the same time, including esg criteria has not been systematically at the expense of returns over the past 20 years. We have not found any correlation between esg assessments and global returns," says Mathijs van Dijk, professor of financial markets at RSM. “We made comparisons and checked them for the influence of other business characteristics, region, sector or chosen time period. Each time, the outcome was that there is no relationship between esg-score and return.'