Sustainability is becoming increasingly important to many people – including when it comes to investing. That’s shown by a representative study from Quirin Privatbank, which, like quirion, offers sustainable investment strategies. The study’s findings were reported by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Handelsblatt, Die Zeit and the FAZ, among others.
The coronavirus is accelerating the shift toward greater sustainability
The studies show that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, sustainability has become significantly more important once again for almost one in five respondents.
“Investing sustainably is no longer a passing trend but is now firmly anchored among people. After all, it’s about leaving future generations a better world through more sustainability,” explained Dr. Konrad Weßner, Managing Director of puls Marktforschung, when presenting the results. And customers are prepared to pay more for it. This willingness to pay a premium is especially high among the representatively surveyed investors for everyday consumer products – on average it stands at 8.8% here, while for sustainable investing it is 4.2%.
“Yet the latter isn’t necessary at all,” explains the chief economist of Quirin Privatbank, Philipp Dobbert. “Not anymore, at least. Investing sustainably doesn’t have to be more expensive today than conventional investments – that was often the case in the past, but with the right concept it can now be avoided.”
Two-thirds would invest sustainably given state incentives
If there were state support for sustainable investments, this would increase the willingness to invest sustainably among two out of three investors (65.6%). Among those under 40, it would even be 74%.
“Here, two hearts beat within my chest: in principle, I’m rather skeptical of subsidies. But if they bring about an even stronger rethink among investors and deliver the breakthrough for sustainable investing, then gladly,” says Dobbert. “It would be important, though, to tie the support to certain quality criteria, such as low costs and broad risk diversification.”
It’s mainly the enfants terribles that are well known
From an investment standpoint, sustainable investments have so far often been very risky, because the options available were frequently highly concentrated – from funds with only a few individual holdings, through single bonds and single stocks, to closed-end investments such as wind or solar parks. This is also reflected in investors’ knowledge: what’s mainly known are the sustainable investment products that have often stood out through negative headlines. Sustainable ETFs, by contrast, are far less well known; 55% of respondents aren’t aware of this investment option at all. This also has to do with the fact that ETFs still have a general awareness problem. That was the finding of the quirion ETF Radar in December 2020.
That sustainable investments are becoming more and more popular is also evident in the fact that 41% of the representatively surveyed investors are in principle willing to invest their entire assets sustainably. Among those under 40, it’s even 52%.
Find out how you can invest sustainably with quirion without giving up good return prospects.
The study results mentioned are available for download in the press section of Quirin Privatbank (here).
