Abstract
This study aims to find a correlation between 242 stock performances on the company level
in historically grown SRI markets in the USA, Germany, and Britain and their respective ESG
scores of domestic rating agencies, as previous studies focused on SR funds and their
performance. Professional input from 5 experts to gain insight into current investment
behaviours and strategies and future outlooks. This was accomplished by using a risk
reduced Pearson correlation for the stock correlation analysis and a scaled-down Braun and
Clarke (2006) framework for the expert survey. The survey showed a substantial shift
towards SRI due to rising client demand while not sacrificing returns. Correlation
performance varied from industry to industry and might not be solely explained by ESG
ratings. It can be expected that customer demand will increase over time and thus naturally
lead to the better stock performance of SRI.
