The regional peculiarities of SRI development

Aim/purpose – The aim of the paper is to examine the regional peculiarities of development of socially responsible investment markets based on the main trends in the global socially responsible investment (SRI). Design/methodology/approach – Peculiarities of SRI development are considered in Europe, the USA, Canada, Asia, and Japan. The analysis is based on the data from local SIF surveys: Eurosif, US SIF, JSIF, RIA Canada, RIAA1 and the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA). In addition, the data from scientific articles and World Bank databases are used. Findings – SRI development by regions is differentiated according to their dynamics, structure of participants, SRI-strategies, structure of assets in the portfolios, and the barriers or motives for the SRI development. There is a set of macroeconomic indicators whose influence on SRI has been analysed and it can be concluded that only indicators of openness can be linked with the regional SRI market development. Research implications/limitations – As the European market takes the largest share of the SRI market, the more detailed analysis has been conducted regarding this region. Study of both theoretical and practical aspects of socially responsible investment has shown that there is a lack of a unified global concept of socially responsible investment. Within the paper, socially responsible investment is considered as an investment in tangible and intangible forms focused on creating long-term value taking into account the impact on the environment, social sphere, quality control, and ethical obligations. Originality/value/contribution – The paper extends and develops the existing research into the issue in several ways: the peculiarities of regional SRI development are defined, and a comparative analysis of SRI regional markets is conducted; the hypothesis that SRI markets are driven by other factors than those which drive the conventional investment market has been proposed; it has been shown that the level of SRI market development makes an impact on strategies, participants and structure of assets, and that macroeconomic indicators could be considered as preconditions for SRI development.