data made available by firms, which are interpreted in light of certain principles, norms and
conventions that are related to SRI.
The roots of SRI stretch back to the 17th century when the Quaker community in United
States opposed investment in activities that contradicted their values, such as war-related
activities or slavery (d’Antonio et al. 1998; Louche 2004). The SRI movement was revitalized
in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s in response to the Vietnam War and Apartheid in
South Africa (Giamporcaro 2004). From 1984 to 1988, investments in SRI products in the
United States increased from USD 40 to 400 billion (Social Investment Forum 2003, 2005).
They have continued to increase during the 1990s and now represent more than 10 percent of
all investments. In 2002, American SRI assets amounted to about USD 2 trillion,
approximately two-thirds of SRI assets worldwide (Committee of Public Finance 2002).
The practice of SRI has spread across the western world in recent years. SRI
terminology first appeared in New York Times in the late 1980s. About a decade later, it
appeared in newspapers in France and Quebec (see Figure 1). This pattern indicates a transfer
of SRI from United States to France and Quebec.
INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE
France had seven SRI funds in 1997; this number grew to 42 in 2001 and to 118 in 2004
(Muet et al. 2002; Novethic 2004). From 1997 to 2004, total SRI assets grew from 0.2 billion
euros to 3 billion euros, despite a general stagnation in the French investment market in this
period (Novethic 2003, 2004). SRI represents approximately 1.5 percent of all French
investments today.
In comparison, Canada had more than 30 ethical investment funds in 2002 (Committee
of Public Finance 2002). The Canadian SRI market is growing twice as fast as the mutual