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The integrability of ESG investing into robo advising

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Bibliographic Details
Summary:Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing and passive asset management are two distinct trends in financial markets. This research examines whether robo advisors can combine these two trends by integrating ESG into their passively managed portfolios. On the example of the ESG portfolio of a German robo advisor, the research finds that ESG is integrable into robo advising, with limitations. A backtest with a threshold-based rebalancing strategy was performed over the sample period 05/31/2011 – 10/31/2018. In comparison to its Non-ESG counterpart, the ESG portfolio does not over- or underperform. Also, its ESG scores are higher. However, the analysis of a second robo advisor shows the limited integrability of ESG into different portfolios due to a lack of available ESG ETFs and inconsistencies in ESG scores.
Main Authors:Becker, Tobias Niklas
Subject:Robo advising ESG ETF
Year:2019
Country:Portugal
Document type:master thesis
Access type:open access
Associated institution:Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Language:English
Origin:Repositório Institucional da UNL
Description
Summary:Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing and passive asset management are two distinct trends in financial markets. This research examines whether robo advisors can combine these two trends by integrating ESG into their passively managed portfolios. On the example of the ESG portfolio of a German robo advisor, the research finds that ESG is integrable into robo advising, with limitations. A backtest with a threshold-based rebalancing strategy was performed over the sample period 05/31/2011 – 10/31/2018. In comparison to its Non-ESG counterpart, the ESG portfolio does not over- or underperform. Also, its ESG scores are higher. However, the analysis of a second robo advisor shows the limited integrability of ESG into different portfolios due to a lack of available ESG ETFs and inconsistencies in ESG scores.