onValues today released results of the latest survey of the Swiss sustainable investment market. The report shows that, due to the financial crisis, the strong growth trend experienced by the sustainable investment market in the past years has been stopped and for the first time since inception of the survey the market has contracted considerably.  The size of the sustainable market per end of 2008 was 20.9 billion CHF (funds, mandates, structured products), which corresponds to a decrease of 38.7% compared to the same value per end of December 2007.  If we take sustainable funds only, the assets decreased by 35.3%. In comparison, the Swiss fund provider assets under management for comparable fund categories decreased by 40.2% in the period Dec. 2007 to Dec. 2008.

The asset inflow in existing and new sustainable funds in 2008 (especially in lower-risk broadly diversified equity, strategy and fixed-income funds) more than compensated the outflow (especially pronounced for some higher-risk theme funds).This resulted in a net asset inflow in sustainable funds of approximately 8.5%, compared to a net outflow of 6.4% experienced by the average Swiss fund provider in 2008. In relative terms, the net inflow experienced by microfinance and fixed-income/strategy funds was particularly marked.