Green Business: So tell me. Do investors care about CSR issues?

Do investors care about CSR issues? 

Thanks to Capital Link for hosting their first annual CSR Forum called “CSR & IR – Maximizing Shareholder Value” yesterday in NYC at the astonishingly gilded Metropolitan Club.

I attended to hear first-hand from the investor community about how they make decisions, and whether CSR issues carry weight.

The answer, writ large? No.

What I heard is that Sustainability, CSR, resilience, whatever you want to call it, is still, still, not front and center.

It’s something that’s on the list, but not at the core of the decision-making process.

Maximizing shareholder value. That’s the core.

As one panelist put it, “When my CEO talks to investors, ESG factors aren’t part of the conversation.”

There’s a U.S. bias, too. Another shared that, “When my CEO talketo U.S. investors, I move the SRI slides to the back of the deck.”

The status quo. It’s powerful.

The highlight of the day for me was hearing Bennett Freeman from Calvert Investments finally mention Climate Change.

He, along with representatives from the Socially Responsible Investment world, were a welcome counterpoint to the traditional investor community perspective.

The status quo. It’s powerful.

For a flavor of the day, read what I and others tweeted live:

Tweet Story: March 13, 2013 Capital Link CSR Forum