In fall 2023, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Hoover Institution Working Group on Corporate Governance at Stanford University, and the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University jointly conducted a nationwide survey of 993 investors—distributed by gender, race, age, household income, and state residence—to understand how American investors view environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities among the companies in their investment portfolio. This survey is a follow-up to the same survey conducted in 2022.
Key findings include:
- Generational gaps shrink. Younger investors show less concern for ESG, while older investors continue to be skeptical.
- Young investors are less likely to want fund managers to advocate for ESG change. Older investors continue to value wealth preservation over advocacy.
- Young investors claim to be willing to lose between 1 and 5 percent of their retirement savings to support ESG causes. Older investors do not want to lose anything.
- Investors claim to be much less knowledgeable about the stock market. They also have more modest expectations for future growth.