Image courtesy of Alexander Grey on Unsplash
Investment companies such as Merryl Lynch, Ameriprise, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, etc., are asset managers and owners who decide how individuals and institutions should invest their money. Don’t fall asleep; stay awake and aware – this matters! Did you know that only seven pension markets control over $50 trillion in assets?
What keeps the asset owners up at night? Morningstar is a forty-year-old financial services research company. Founder Joe Mansueto is said to have named his company Morningstar from the last sentence in Walden, a book written by 19th-century American author, poet, and Naturalist Henry David Thoreau. He wrote, “The sun is but a morning star.”
The well-respected annual report, “Morningstar Voice of the Asset Owner Survey,” reflects what asset owners are focused on for investment opportunities. The report discovered a dramatic 12% increase from 2023 to 2024 in environmental considerations. Global environmental factors were at the top of mind and increased from 52% in 2023 to 64% in 2024.
Anyone with investments through pension funds, insurance companies, foundations, and endowments, these concerns will impact them. Asset owner significantly influence all the other investors and wealth managers in the financial investment industry. It’s a financial ecosystem.
According to the report, asset owners view the transition to net-zero emissions as their number one concern when making decisions, at 55% importance. That’s an increase of 2% from 2023. Energy management is the second greatest concern, up from 40% in 2023 to 49% in 2024. Water and wastewater management was their third greatest concern, at 33%.
The disastrous impact of climate change is significant, and this concern with asset owners should help green companies receive the funding they need to bring progress and solutions that we all need quickly.
