Does Investing In Sustainable Companies Mean Higher Returns for Your Portfolio?

Investors might want to take a closer look at their portfolios to make sure they have exposure to sustainable companies, according to one expert. 'Some [sustainable companies] beat the market,' said Lloyd Kurtz, head of social impact investing at Wells Fargo Private Bank. 'There's good academic evidence that environmental policies can be good, but it's harder to prove in practice because there are so many other factors involved: valuation and the quality of the money manager.' Investing in sustainable companies, which are typically focused on limiting their carbon footprint, is part of a broader investment theses surrounding 'socially responsible investing.' Socially responsible investing stems beyond the environment 'How do companies treat customers? How do they treat employees? How do they treat shareholders with their corporate governance practices?' Kurtz asked. For example, the iShares MSCI ACWI Low Carbon Target ETF (CRBN) - Get Report gained 7.1 percent year-to-date and includes companies like Apple (AAPL) - Get Report , Amazon (AMZN) - Get Report , General Electric (GE) - Get Report , Facebook (FB) - Get Report , Alphabet (GOOGL) - Get Report and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) - Get Report , among others. TheStreet's Scott Gamm reports from Wall Street.