Nearly fifteen years have passed since the term Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) was first used by the UN Global Compact but it is over the last 12 – 18 months that ESG as a concept has truly come to the forefront of the asset management industry.

In fact, today it can be argued to be the single most influential theme currently driving the investment industry.

In light of this, we conducted the 2019 JPES Partners ESG Media Audit, with a view to assessing journalist’s perceptions of how asset managers are communicating to them around ESG to see if lessons could be learned.

The following report analyses the growth in ESG as a theme for asset managers and how the media are perceiving this new trend, looking at both the quantity of material being produced, but also critically the quality of that material.

KEY FINDINGS

• 92% of journalists expressed concern about greenwashing by the asset management industry
• Only 25% of media are positive about the quality of ESG content they receive
• Only 33% strongly trust the content they receive

ESG Media Audit 2019