The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:53:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png Environmental, Social and Governance Investing by University Endowments – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 Environmental, Social and Governance Investing by University Endowments https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/08/11/environmental-social-and-governance-investing-by-university-endowments/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=environmental-social-and-governance-investing-by-university-endowments https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/08/11/environmental-social-and-governance-investing-by-university-endowments/#comments Sat, 11 Aug 2012 14:07:50 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/corpgov/?p=31499?d=20150113140704EST Posted by Noam Noked, co-editor, HLS Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, on Saturday, August 11, 2012
Editor's Note:

The following post comes to us from Joshua Humphreys, fellow and principal investigator at the Tellus Institute, and Jon Lukomnik, executive director at the IRRC Institute. This post is based on the executive summary of a report from the IRRC Institute and the Tellus Institute by Mr. Humphreys, Christi Electris, Catie Ferrara, and Ann Solomon; the full report is available here.

With more than $400 billion in combined assets under management, US college and university endowments constitute an important segment of institutional investors involved in sustainable and responsible investing – defined here as the explicit incorporation of environmental, social and corporate-governance (ESG) issues into investment decision-making and active-ownership activities. This study provides one of the most comprehensive analyses to date of the state of ESG investing by educational endowments.

In it, we aggregate multiple survey datasets that address three broad areas of ESG investing activity: 1) the incorporation of ESG criteria into endowment management; 2) shareholder advocacy and active-ownership initiatives; and 3) the governance and transparency of ESG investment decision-making.

In addition to analyzing existing survey data, the study advances a novel interpretation about the distinctiveness of endowments’ involvement in ESG investing. What differentiates educational endowments from the adoption of sustainable and responsible investing strategies by other institutional investors, such as foundations, hospitals, public pensions, corporations, unions or faith-based investors, is the particular constellation of stakeholder relations within which the vast majority of ESG investment practices have been adopted by colleges and universities.

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