Keynote address by Professor Ayako Yasuda, UC Davis Graduate School of Management
This talk synthesizes recent academic research on the heterogeneity of investor motivations in sustainable investing and their implications for capital allocation, fund manager behavior, and sustainability outcomes. Drawing on investor surveys, incentivized experiments, textual analysis of fund disclosures, equity holdings, and portfolio company emissions, the evidence reveals that capital is often directed toward return-oriented or morally motivated strategies, rather than those designed to achieve real-world impact. The findings provide a nuanced understanding of ESG’s limited effectiveness in driving change and contextualize recent political critique showing that many sustainable funds fall short of transformative goals not by failure, but by design.
