ESG Integration and Shareholder Engagement in the United States

This document reports the findings of a November 2015 interview survey of institutional investors, namely investment managers and asset owners, in the United States. The survey covered ESG integration and shareholder engagement among these institutional investors, and it was a successor to the surveys of European institutional investors conducted in 2014 and 2015 (Terayama and Sugiura, 2014; Terayama and Sugiura, 2016).
Our survey of ESG integration in the United States found that ESG factors are being incorporated into investment strategies similar to other investment factors used in conventional investment methods. Our survey of shareholder engagement found that proxy voting and engagement are perceived as a part of the investment process. We also found that shareholder engagement has recently become commonplace owing to governance reform such as Say-on-Pay and proxy access.