Fostering sustainable investments through micro-investing platforms

We uncover the underlying factors that influence perceived trade-offs between sustainability and financial returns and risks, and the resulting real-world investment behaviour of micro-investors. Given the direct-to-consumer nature of new age investment platforms, the context for our study is framed within a consumer-centric context. Through a survey and conjoint experiment (383 investors), and analysis of actual investment decisions (for 89,744 micro-investors), we show that individual motives-specifically sustainability values and feelings of empowerment-are key drivers for sustainable investments, influencing willingness to forgo financial returns and the duration of investment. We provide practical implications for fostering sustainable investments through micro-investing platforms.