Money market funds that incorporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics are growing rapidly, with an increase of activity by big asset managers such as State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), BlackRock and DWS. Assets in the sector rose 15 percent to $52 billion during the first half of 2019, after growing 1 percent through all of 2018, according to research from Fitch Ratings. This pool of assets is still very small compared with the total $6 trillion money market sector. However, the Fitch Ratings believes this expansion is striking and that financiers are predicting further rapid growth given that investors from both the public and private sectors seem keen to explore more ESG options. French asset management company, Amundi, is the largest provider of ESG money funds and the majority of the market is based in Europe, but Fitch expects that to start to change. BlackRock and SSGA launched US funds in January and July, respectively.

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The Financial Times