It is now accepted that investors are not doomed to accepting lower returns as a consequence of adopting an ethical or ESG-related investment approach.

The reality is that ESG portfolios perform just as well as their conventional peers. Indeed there is some evidence to suggest that an ESG investment strategy is more likely to outperform.

Nonetheless, investors could still do just as well, if not better, by investing in so-called sin stocks.

Amoral investors would certainly have generated better returns by holding portfolios biased towards “sin” sectors such as alcohol and tobacco according to the evidence ...