A PricewaterhouseCoopers article, "Do Investors Care About Sustainability? Seven Trends Provide Clues" gives an overview on whether the sustainability of a company impacts investment decisions. Seven trends in finance are examined to provide a basis for the ansewer to the question: Does it matter? Below is a short summary of each trend.

1. Susainability shareholder resolutions are gaining traction: Investors are coming together and voicing concern about climate change and its effect on business. Many investor groups are also lobbying for governments worldwide to adopt international climate change treaties.

2. Steady growth in sustainable investment: One out of every eight dollars under professional management in the US is in sustainable and responsible investing according to the Social Investment Forum Foundation.

3. Positive relationships between environment, social governance factors and financial performance: Those who participate in environmental and social stewardship are seeing benifits in stock performance, lower volatility and other measures.

4. Financial institutions forming sustainability research departments: They are developing benchmarks for performance and screenings for those who are best in thier class.

5. Entry of well-funded financial information providers: Making it easier to compare corporate financial and sustainability data and the relationships within the data.

6. The use of ESG data: Individual investors are actually paying attention to this data in combination with the traditional financial measures that are used to evaluate company performance.

7. Growing interest amoung institutional investors: It's not just individual investors anymore; institutional investors are requesting carbon disclosure.

The bottom line is that more and more investors can see that community well-being is connected to corporate performance. Appreciation for corporate disclosure is increasing and it does matter to investors. See the article from PricewaterhouseCoopers for more details on each topic and the research background.