ESG adoption among US wealth managers varies widely, report reveals
FINTRX noted the two figures are not directly comparable, since its classification captures firms that explicitly brand themselves as ESG investors in regulatory filings rather than any advisor who deploys an ESG fund for any client.
State-level variations
Vermont posted the highest ESG concentration among RIAs at 20.6%, though with only 34 independent RIAs registered in the state, that figure reflects just seven firms. Hawaii followed at 16.7% on a similarly thin base.
Among states with larger advisor populations, Colorado led at 12.0%, ahead of Massachusetts (11.7%), Minnesota (11.3%), New Hampshire (11.0%) and Pennsylvania (10.6%). New York, home to the country’s second-largest RIA population, registered 9.6%, while California, the largest state by firm count with 1,780 RIAs, came in at 6.3%.
At the bottom of the table, Mississippi, North Dakota and West Virginia each showed zero ESG concentration among independent RIAs in the FINTRX database, with Arkansas at 1.5% and Montana at 2.9%. FINTRX cautioned that low advisor populations in these states mean small shifts in raw firm counts can swing the percentages significantly.
Family offices
Family offices, however, tell a markedly different story. Looking at the global family office universe of 4,602 firms, FINTRX found active impact investor adoption, a separate classification indicating a firm weighs ESG factors as part of its strategy, running between 26.6% and 34.4% depending on domicile, four to five times the rate seen among RIAs nationally.
