The Market for Socially Responsible Investments
Many independent studies in recent years have established that between 20 and 30 percent of adult Americans exhibit the characteristics of being "social responsibility oriented," "socially aware," or "values-based" investors. The most pointed and detailed of these studies is entitled The Integral Culture Survey: A Study of the Emergence of Transformational Values in America. This decade-long research effort found that nearly one in four American adults lives by a "new" set of values. They are affluent, well educated, and on the cutting edge of social change.
As predicted by futurists Alvin Toffler, John Naisbitt, and Marilyn Ferguson in the early 1980s, study author and sociologist Gerald Jones has identified an emerging culture whose adherents tend to be more altruistic and powerfully attuned to global issues and whole systems. They are relationship oriented, interested in spirituality and ecological sustainability, and actively involved in their local communities. Jones calls the 24 percent of Americans who hold this emerging world view "Cultural Creatives." Traditional age-specific demographic categories such as "Baby Boomer" or "Generation X" do not apply. Cultural Creatives are found in all age groups. In fact, the only strikingly significant conventional demographic that distinguishes them is that six in ten are women.
Cultural Creatives tend to believe that few other people share their values. While they are avid readers and gatherers of news and information, little of what Cultural Creatives read provides evidence of their huge numbers and growing clout. This is partly because the views of these 44 million adult Americans are rarely represented in the conventional media. The press is substantially owned and operated according to a very different world view - that of the Modernists, according to Jones. For the most part, Modernists also own and/or control the financial services industry in the United States. As a result, sensitivity to the goals, needs, and aspirations of investors with a Cultural Creative world view is seriously lacking.
Jones's Cultural Creatives match the profile of American social investors almost perfectly. Indeed, over the past two decades, social investing in the U.S. has evolved into a $1.2 trillion industry (1997 Report on Responsible Investing in the United States, Social Investment Forum). To tens of thousands of socially aware investors, the term "investing for the future" has a double meaning, and their investment approach often has a dual objective. The investment analysis process they employ is both quantitative and qualitative. The "double bottom line" approach they employ aims at competitive returns while seeking to put money to work in ways which are consistent with their personal, oral, and ethical values. They are most satisfied with investment programs that go beyond purely financial goals to address their need to "make a difference." They are most comfortable with investments that align with their highest aspirations for the world they see themselves passing on to future generations.
Contrary to what some might believe, Jones's study has underscored the fact that Cultural Creatives have incomes and investment resources comparable, on average, to the "mainstream" market targeted by most conventional financial services organizations. And yet this is a market that most investment professionals ignore, or try to serve in traditional ways that simply don't fit the needs and/or styles of investors with a Cultural Creative world view.
A Corporate Culture of Respect
Shared Ownership - Expand Distribution
