Croatan Institute’s research on clean energy and green bonds was featured in an Institutional Investor article yesterday on the growing interest in impact investing among mainstream investment managers.

Highlighting the move into impact investing work across asset classes by the world’s largest investment management company, BlackRock, Inc., the article quotes a recent Croatan Institute report that “identified the U.S. green-bond market as a key sector for ‘the growing group of foundations, endowments and other institutional investors that are grappling with fossil fuel divestment and seeking new investments in climate solutions.’”

“What Investors Want: How to Scale Up Demand for US Clean Energy and Green Bonds,” published in December 2014 by Croatan Institute and the Clean Energy Group, has been seen as an authoritative report on the growing market for clean energy and green bonds. The report, available for download here, presents analysis and recommendations for the green bond market as a result of dozens of interviews of leading actors in the green bond space.

Croatan Institute President and Senior Fellow Joshua Humphreys, an expert on green bonds and sustainable finance, is also cited in Institutional Investor as anticipating that “green bonds will become a bigger part of climate-conscious investors’ portfolios.” Croatan Institute’s research continues to investigate this trend, with a forthcoming report expected in Spring 2015 on foundation investments in climate protection and the mission fit of green bonds.

The article also cites the $6.57 trillion in socially responsible assets under management identified in the 2014 Report on US Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing Trends. Croatan Institute served as a major contributor to the research and writing for that report in collaboration with US SIF Foundation. The executive summary can be downloaded here.

According to Institutional Investor, BlackRock has also focused on expanding impact opportunities across public equities. Croatan Institute’s Impact of Equity Engagement (IE2) Initiative seeks to evaluate and quantify the true social and environmental impact of shareholder engagement by firms such as BlackRock. Initial findings from the initiative are presented in a November 2014 paper available for download here.

For more about Croatan Institute’s work on this topic, visit our program on impact investing.

Joshua Humphreys can be reached at josh [at] croataninstitute.org.