Impact Investing | U.S. Bank
Integrating your values into your portfolio
We help you find market value in your values. Your wealth management professional will consider your ethical priorities, along with your desired financial objectives, to create your portfolio.
Impact investing includes environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations. We offer socially and ethically responsible investment options that seek to mitigate risks and contribute to ESG solutions.
Our Asset Management Group includes a dedicated team of analysts with deep experience in analyzing and assessing ESG funds. Our excellent reputation with community partners helps us navigate ESG considerations – and because we don’t offer proprietary products – we're able to offer what we believe will be the most suitable options based on your needs.
Environmental – climate change, energy efficiency, pollution, water scarcity or biodiversity
Social – human rights, gender and racial diversity, education, labor standards or employee engagement
Governance – board composition, executive pay, audit committee, lobbying activities or political contributions
We believe considering ESG impact as part of investment analysis can help improve decision-making around potential risks and opportunities. With your goals in mind, we'll select funds that aim to deliver positive investment returns while addressing social or environmental challenges.
EXPANDING BEYOND FINANCIAL RETURNS
Values-based difference
Our approach to helping you assess ESG investment options is:
Data-driven. We offer objective and data-driven impact investment options.
Insightful. We provide insights on the rapidly changing ESG landscape.
Impactful. We show you the measurable impact of your investments.
Meaningful. We help you discover the impact opportunities that connect with you.
Terms for impact investing
Impact captures the breadth of initiatives but some other common terms include:
Socially responsible investing (SRI)​
Sustainable investing (SI)
Greenwashing is a term for cases when investment managers focus their efforts primarily on exploiting marketing opportunities rather than making investment decisions based on genuine commitments to ESG impacts.
Defense against greenwashing
We serve as your first line of defense against greenwashing. We sort through the data to help clients separate the “winners from the spinners,” by looking at the root cause of greenwashing. Three critical areas of due diligence are:
Benefits. Does the investment generate ESG benefits in addition to a financial return?
Significance. How significant are ESG factors to the financial performance?
Effort. Do the results come from ESG efforts or just chance?
U.S. Bank recognized as one of the 2021 World’s Most Admired Companies, ranking atop the Superregional Banks industry category for the 11th consecutive year.
– Fortune1
U.S. Bank was named a World’s Most Ethical Company 7 years in a row.
– Ethisphere Institute, February 20212
Industry executives, directors, and analysts from 670 companies, including 12 superregional banks, with a minimum of $10 billion in annual revenue were surveyed by Korn Ferry in collaboration with Fortune Magazine. Survey responders rated their industry peers who paid a fee to be considered on nine criteria: management quality, people management, use of corporate assets, financial soundness, investment value, social responsibility, innovation, quality of products/services, and global competitiveness. Rankings were determined by an aggregate of how peers ranked the company in each of the key attribute categories. Companies that scored in the top half of their industry were recognized. More detail about the selection methodology.
U.S. Bank named one of the “World’s Most Ethical Companies®” Ethisphere Institute, February 2021 (also 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015); for more information about the ‘World’s Most Ethical Company’ designation and scoring methodology, please visit www.worldsmostethicalcompanies.com.