Clara Simoes Gariso

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
The article observes the evolution of ESG adoption in Portuguese investment funds during the period 2021–2024 in the context of the strengthening of the European Union’s regulatory framework. The objective was to measure the degree of adoption of the principles, the institutional asymmetries, and the temporal dynamics induced by regulation. The study focused on four fund management companies, representing a total of 259 active funds, and employed a composite indicator on a discrete scale [0.3], defined on the basis of five ESG sub-dimensions. A structured content analysis and descriptive statistics were conducted, allowing an assessment of the mean, median, absolute and relative dispersion, skewness, and kurtosis of the distributions. The results suggest a continuous growth of the average indicator, from 0.75 in 2021 to 2.20 in 2024, accompanied by an increase in the median from 0.80 to 2.70. The standard deviation increased from 0.36 to 0.93, reflecting a greater absolute heterogeneity, while the coefficient of variation decreased from 0.48 to 0.32 between 2021 and 2022 and normalized around 0.41-0.42. The distributions exhibit persistent negative skewness (between −0.27 and −0.73) and negative kurtosis (between −1.85 and −1.70), which suggests an absence of full convergence and persistence of structural asymmetries. The subdimensions showed higher average values compared to those associated with quantitative measurement and the principle of double materiality. The analysis concludes that the inclusion of the metrics has evolved significantly, but asymmetries persist, which attests to the validity of the indicator as an appropriate tool for conducting ESG analyses.

Acknowledgment
This article is financed by CINAV–Navy Research Center [CINAV–Centro de Investigação Naval].