Sustainable Development Efforts By Emerging Market Funds

I wrote on Monday about DAI's white paper about vulture funds' interest in and ongoing efforts towards sustainable development in emerging markets. As a follow up to that I'd like to share the following, a recent entry on the website BankInvesmentConsultant.com of a similar sentiment:

Emerging Markets Warming Up to Sustainable Investing
By Money Management Executive
April 2, 2009

Fund managers in emerging markets are increasingly paying attention to environmental, social and corporate governance factors, according to research by Mercer.With $300 billion under management, sustainable investment management assets in emerging markets now represent 10% of all assets managed there. Fifty billion of that is in funds specifically labeled as sustainable investments, and the remaining $250 billion is in funds that practice sustainable investing.While managers in emerging markets often have a deeper understanding of social issues than their counterparts in developed nations, often they don’t know how to use their proxy voting power, noted Danyelle Guyatt, head of research in Mercer’s responsible investment unit.Mercer believes that if socially responsible investing is practiced in emerging markets, it can go a long way toward reducing poverty in those regions.