Seventy percent of respondents to survey by the Emerging Market Disclosure Project say that lack of ESG disclosure by companies in emerging markets hampers their efforts to increase investments.

SocialFunds.com -- Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure by companies in emerging markets is becoming an increasingly important issue of concern to sustainability investors in the developed world. As Lauren Compere, the Director of Shareholder Advocacy at Boston Common Asset Management, told SocialFunds.com, "We need to look for good investment opportunities in the future, and they're not going to be in developed markets. If we want to have better investment performance, we need to start looking at emerging markets as a core holding."

The Emerging Market Disclosure Project (EMD Project) is an initiative whose aim is to improve sustainability disclosure in emerging markets. Its organizing partners include Boston Common Asset Management, Calvert Investments, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Social Investment Forum (SIF).

As part of the third and final phase of the EMD Project, which focuses on promoting improved ESG disclosure by corporations operating in Brazil, India, South Korea, Russia, and South Africa, the project partners asked EIRIS, a research organization, to analyze the results of an investor survey to gain a better understanding of investment activities in emerging markets.

The report that was authored by EIRIS, entitled Emerging Markets Investor Survey Report: An analysis of responsible investment in emerging markets, analyzed the responses of 67 sustainability investors, mostly from North America and Europe, who manage over $130 billion of emerging market assets.

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