Survey Background
The results included in this report are sourced from the FTSE Russell survey of asset owners, conducted in partnership with radius | illumination. This year marks the fourth year we have covered the topic of sustainability/ESG considerations within the context of smart beta. We have expanded our coverage of sustainable investment in each of the past four years as interest in the topic has continued to grow.
The 2020 survey was conducted in January and February, with 139 global asset owners participating. The majority of participants were located in North America (37%), EMEA (37%), and Asia Pacific (21%).
A wide mix of organization types are represented, including government organizations (28%), corporations or private businesses (18%), unions or industry-wide pension schemes (12%), and non-profit organizations or universities (12%). The rest is a mix of insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, health-care organizations and family offices.
139
global asset owners
Asset owners with $10 billion or more in total AUM account for 54% of responses.
Fifty-four percent of the asset owners who responded manage defined benefit plan assets, 26% manage defined contribution plan assets and 13% manage endowment or foundation assets. In some cases, respondents indicated management of multiple asset types. Participants also include asset owners with insurance general accounts, sovereign wealth funds and other types of institutional entities.
Asset owners with $10 billion or more in total AUM account for 54% of responses, those with AUM between $1 billion and $10 billion account for 29%, and those with under $1 billion in total AUM make up the remaining 17%.
The distribution of our asset owner sample has shifted from year-to-year across regions and AUM tiers. This can contribute to year-over-year changes in the results.
For a sample size of 139, the margin of error is +/- 8% at a 95% confidence margin. Throughout the report, percentages may not total 100 due to rounding and/or because some questions allowed for multiple responses. (Allowance for multiple responses is noted as “multi-pick” in each exhibit footer).”
For the purposes of this survey, “smart beta” is defined as an investment strategy that applies an index-based investment strategy that is not traditionally market cap-weighted (i.e., fundamentally weighted, equal weighted, factor weighted, optimized, etc.).