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Mr Waddington, manager for the multi-asset team for Insight Investment, said environmental and social governance was increasingly driving their investment strategy.

He said: "While we do not use the language of environmental, social and governance issues to describe how we harness themes in our portfolios, environmental and social issues are central to our process.

"These issues are no longer simply concerns for specialist ethical investors, but are now significant source of investment opportunities.

"In the last few years, we have successfully harnessed themes such as changing demographics and living habits in the developing world, climate change, water and demand for hard and soft commodities in our portfolios."

While such issues were increasingly providing input that could be incorporated in the portfolio Mr Waddington said understanding how this would feed through into market behaviour was highly important.

He said: "Our view is that using a combination of vehicles and managers both decreases risk and allows us to benefit from trends that may not be easily harnessed in a single asset-class-focused investment portfolio."

Keith Jarman, director of Fareham-based IFA Hughes Carne, said he thought there was still room for funds that branded themselves as ethical.

He also felt some investors put their ethics aside when it came to making maximum returns.

He said: "The vast majority of people may be green and ethical in some respects but they are also greedy, they want the best return they can get."