ESG Investing: A Decision-Making Paradox?
Document Type
Article
Keywords
ESG investing; stocks; ESG portfolio
Identifier Data
10.3905/jesg.2022.1.054
Publisher
Portfolio Management Research
Rights Management
© 2022 PMR. All rights reserved.
Abstract
Debates about the attributes of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing are ongoing. The definitions, integration methods, performance outcomes, and data consistency are all developing. Against this backdrop, we explore whether ESG investing constitutes a decision-making paradox in which selecting a desirable set of stocks for inclusion in an ESG portfolio simultaneously requires adopting a desirable decision-making method to select those stocks. Comparing the results from two multicriteria decision-making methods for selecting ESG portfolio stocks, we illustrate the sensitivity of the resulting selections to various approaches. We recommend a series of practical steps for resolving the paradox.
