green finance, investment - ESG, greenwashing

featured/intro – updates below

green finance – investment – ESG – greenwashing – updates – 4-2023

bloomberg.com 13-3-2023 Sweden Bans Non-ESG Funds From $90 Billion Pensions Pot – Program will replace a system that was dragged down by scandal – Sweden expects to select 150 funds in the second quarter – By Love Liman

Sweden is inviting international asset managers to help allocate 1 trillion kronor ($90 billion) of pension savings, but says it won’t accept applications from firms that don’t incorporate ESG into their strategies. The new framework will replace a system tainted by an embezzlement scandal that infuriated Swedish taxpayers and triggered calls for a more robust setup. The upshot is that only investment firms that integrate environmental, social and governance goals into their work need apply, according to the Office

seekingalpha.com 7-2-2023 ESG Died In 2022 – Fund companies now own large percentages of U.S. corporations, and this concentration of power is a matter of public policy – By VanEck

Fund companies can tell the investee companies what to do by voting proxies or electing directors who reflect their views.
Suggesting that politicians stay away from the issue of concentration of voting power is not only a mistake, it is also out of step with our multi-generational public policy of addressing concentrations of economic power. The asset management industry should engage with policymakers to suggest solutions.

unherd.com 3-2-2023 The dark side of ESG: data ‘sweatshops’- The exploitation of those in the developing world is not always lifted by the lofty aims of ESG. – by Lucy Harris

Approaches to environmental, social, and corporate governance — otherwise known as ESG — may be coming under increasing scrutiny, but it remains a boom industry. Ironically, the pursuit of socially conscious finance could lead to an alarming trend of so-called “data sweatshops” springing up across the globe to service the ESG industry itself. This should give pause for thought to those funnelling billions of pounds at the behest of so-called ethical investment.

The demand from companies to be scored for their ESG efforts has led to numerous data companies surfacing to provide ranking services, processing the vast amounts of data on supply chains and carbon footprints to produce companies’ ESG scores. The AI algorithms used by these services to calculate a sustainability rating rely on vast amounts of raw data, which in turn must be inputted manually through a labour-intensive process of “data labelling”. That is, labour which can mean that it ends up taking place in the same poor working conditions that ESG is supposedly addressing.

Data centres have appeared in less economically developed areas of the world, including parts of Africa, the Philippines and Indonesia, with data labellers working in insecure conditions on less than the minimum wage.

euronews.com 30-01-2023 What is greenhushing? How to spot the sophisticated greenwashing tactics being used in 2023 – By Angela Symons

nytimes.com – flipboard – dnyuz.com 19-1-2023 Why Some Executives Wish E.S.G. ‘Just Goes Away’ by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ravi Mattu, Bernhard Warner, Sarah Kessler, Michael J. de la Merced, Lauren Hirsch, Ephrat Livni

Corporate leaders open up about E.S.G. At a cocktail party this week in Davos, one executive told DealBook something he — and most of the attendees at the World Economic Forum — would most likely never say in public: “I hope E.S.G. just goes away.” The executive, whose company is involved in the carbon industry, clarified that he still believes that it is vital to focus on climate, but that environmental, social and corporate governance — as the business approach is formally known — has become too broad and distracting. He’s just one of many executives who have talked to DealBook about coming to terms with how politically charged E.S.G. has become, and about how to deal with it.

Have executives overpromised on E.S.G.? Fixating on lofty goals, without delivering on actions, has made business leaders vulnerable to a backlash, executives said. As evidence, some point to BlackRock’s Larry Fink, one of the earliest and most vocal proponents of E.S.G., saying he’s trying to “change the narrative” after taking fire from the right, and despite the fact that the asset manager still has investments tied to fossil fuels. The elevated messaging, and the pushback to it, has also obscured what supporters of the movement say are the real financial considerations of E.S.G., like what climate change means for a real estate business.

One finance executive compared the current “Davos era” approach to E.S.G. with other once-popular management philosophies, like the Six Sigma system embraced by the former G.E. boss Jack Welch. While investing with purpose probably won’t go away, the executive at Davos said, this particular flavor of E.S.G. may.

Executives worry there’s an overemphasis on measurement. Debate over which yardsticks to use to measure E.S.G. achievements like carbon-emissions reduction has become a distraction, some said. Worse, it can lead to so-called greenwashing of a business or investment.

Global bosses think the E.S.G. backlash is an American phenomenon. Many of the executives at Davos say the politicization of the approach is largely contained to the U.S., reflecting the country’s deep political polarization. After all, Europe has embraced E.S.G. to a far greater extent: One executive of a publicly traded green biosciences company told DealBook that European investors want to plumb more deeply into his company than their American counterparts and that their questions sometimes double the length of his meetings with them.

The stakes are high. E.S.G. investing is one of the fastest-growing segments in finance. PwC forecasts that asset managers will increase their E.S.G.-related assets under management to more than $34 trillion by 2026 from $18 trillion in 2021 as the investment boom becomes more mainstream. …

theconversation.com/ 4-1-2023 Boys will be boys’: why consumers don’t punish big polluters for greenwashing lies – by Adam Austen Kay

“Stigma is an awful burden for business. But what if – for some companies – stigma is an asset? That’s what I and an international team of researchers set out to investigate in a new paper published in the Journal of Management Studies.

We examined how consumers around the world responded to firms in stigmatised industries like oil and gas that are found “greenwashing”, meaning they claim to do more for the environment than they really do. We anticipated that the market would punish greenwashers, but we thought it would treat firms seen to be “dirty” rather differently. Specifically, we thought the market would either

punish dirty firms more, as might the judge of a repeat offender in court; or
punish dirty firms less, as might parents who overlook poor behaviour by their child with outdated excuses like “boys will be boys”.

What we discovered has important implications for greenwashing and important implications more broadly.

What we found: In a study tracking 7,365 companies in 47 countries over 15 years, we found that consumers financially penalised firms for greenwashing – but not if those firms were stigmatised as dirty. In other words, the market imposed a kind of tax on companies for greenwashing, unless they were already regarded as big polluters. In order to find out why stigmatised greenwashers were exempt from this market tax, we conducted a follow-up experiment.

After a pre-study to determine which industries are most regarded as “dirty”, “clean” or “neutral” (the answers were oil and gas, solar and wind power, and stationery and office supplies), we presented 458 consumers with a statement from the corporate citizenship report of a firm in one of these three industries. In the statement,…”…

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fnlondon.com 17-11-2022 Ex-BlackRock executive says ESG investment model is broken – Terrence Keeley’s new book hints at a quiet debate within a firm that has embraced sustainable investing – By Angel Au-Yeung

“Terrence Keeley had been at BlackRock for about a decade when he reached a contrarian conclusion: ESG doesn’t work. Keeley spent much of his time at the asset manager…”…

amazon.co.uk – goodreads 10-2022 Sustainable: Moving Beyond ESG to Impact Investing Kindle Edition
by Terrence Keeley – video

Should business and finance play larger roles in resolving the great social and environmental challenges of our time? Proponents of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing say yes. They argue that ESG financial strategies can help reverse runaway carbon emissions and fix income and gender inequalities, among other ills. ESG-integrated investments already encompass more than $120 trillion in financial assets. Are they working as promised? If not, how can they be improved?

In Sustainable, a finance-industry veteran offers an insider’s look at the promises, prospects, and perils of ESG investing. Terrence Keeley argues that many ESG advocates have been overly optimistic about what it can accomplish. Divestment threats are ineffective tools for altering corporate behavior, and verifiably “good” companies do not systematically generate great returns. Most importantly, business and finance cannot cure social ills on their own: regulators, public policies, civil society, and individuals must all play specific, complementary roles to shape the future we want. Keeley provides comprehensive solutions that would promote more inclusive, sustainable growth. In particular, he recommends reallocating capital from some indexed products toward an emerging class of strategies with more verifiable social and environmental benefits. Keeley identifies dozens of alternative “impact investing” strategies that could generate true double bottom lines. He also highlights promising civic organizations with proven methodologies for achieving widely shared benefits at scale.

Proposing practical, actionable, and in many cases profitable solutions to social and environmental problems, Sustainable offers an incisive vision of the roles business and finance can and should play in building a flourishing society.

ft.com 12-11-2022 The banking approach to net zero is just claptrap – by Stuart Kirk

climate eco crisis - net zero greenwash green finance - ft 11-2022 Stuart Kirk

ft.com 28-10-2022 The flood of green finance must be diverted from the west – Gilian Tett

green finance climate crisis G Tett FT 10-2022

esgtoday.com 19-10-2022 BlackRock Launches Multi-Asset ESG Fund, Designed as a “Core Sustainable Holding” – by Emily Shain

BlackRock Launches Multi-Asset ESG Fund, Designed as a “Core Sustainable Holding”

economist.com 1-10-2022 The fundamental contradiction of ESG is being laid bare – Profit-seeking companies have too little incentive to save the planet

ft.com 25-9-2022 Business needs selfish reasons to be green – by Gilllian Tett

Green Capitalism business greenwashing ESG - Gilian Tett FT 9-2022

economist.com/22-9-2022 The fundamental contradiction of ESG is being laid bare – Profit-seeking companies have too little incentive to save the planet

an profit-seeking companies really help save the planet? The question has long dogged the practice of environmental, social and governance (esg) investing. Judging by the giddy growth in all things esg, you might have thought the answer to it must be Yes. More than $35trn of assets worldwide are said to be monitored using some sort of sustainability lens, an increase of 55% since 2016. Investors, banks and businesses have signed up to a series of alliances, from the gfanz and the gsia to the pri and the iigcc, pledging to bring down their own carbon emissions and those of their portfolios. And bosses of s&p 500 companies now mention esg nine times a quarter in earnings calls, on average, compared with just once, if at all, in 2017…

…One illustration of the tensions in esg is the political firestorm in America around BlackRock, a huge asset manager . Republican attorneys-general in 19 states accuse it of misusing its market power by boycotting fossil-fuel firms. The company rejects the charge. Meanwhile, watchdogs in New York, a Democratic state, complain that BlackRock is not green enough. The controversy could come at a cost to the business: Texas, a Republican state, plans to ban its pension funds from dealing with the firm…

The esg dream was that capital markets would penalise those firms that ignored the looming costs of climate change on their businesses. But in practice the costs are too uncertain and distant to play a big part in firms’ or investors’ financial calculus. Most companies can win the gains of appearing green while avoiding the cost of decarbonising by paying lip-service to green goals. According to Climate Action 100+, a group of investors, more than two-thirds of the world’s 166 biggest greenhouse-gas emitters have promised to reach net zero by 2050 or sooner. But less than a fifth have medium-term targets; a similarly low share have set out quantified decarbonisation strategies. It falls to governments to reconcile the goals of profit maximisation and a safer climate. The best way of doing this is to set a high enough price on carbon, forcing companies to internalise the costs of their dirty activities, so that going green is also good for the bottom line. Mandated standards and disclosures must be brought in more quickly, to help firms assess their exposure to higher carbon prices. Companies can help save the planet—but only if doing so is good for business.

thetimes.co.uk 15-9-2022 City law firms accused of greenwashing – by Jonathan Ames

…”…a group of 150 prominent lawyers — including 17 King’s Counsel — have signed an open letter that calls on commercial law specialists to do more to fight climate change. It also accuses many of the world’s biggest law firms, including four of London’s elite “magic circle”, of “greenwashing” — talking a good game about environmental sustainability while representing the world’s biggest polluters…”…

theguardian.com 16-9-2022 Governments urged to act after oil giants accused of misleading public – Documents suggest Shell and BP staff privately downplayed public commitments on climate crisis – by Alex Lawson

…”…Oil and gas companies including Britain’s Shell and BP were urged to “stop their deception” this week as the US House committee on oversight and reform released documents showing that oil industry executives privately downplayed their public messages on efforts to tackle the climate crisis. …

… “My committee’s investigation leaves no doubt that, in the words of one company official, big oil is ‘gaslighting’ the public. These companies claim they are part of the solution to climate change, but internal documents reveal that they are continuing with business as usual. I call on the big fossil fuel companies to stop their deception and cut their emissions now – before it is too late.”

Jamie Peters, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “Big oil firms like Shell, Exxon and Chevron can try to gloss over their murky PR image as much as they like, as we’ve seen in the millions of dollars pumped into disingenuous greenwash campaigns by the industry. But though unsurprising, this bombshell disclosure confirms what remains utterly transparent about big oil. That it has every intention to keep on extracting in pursuit of profit, rather than transforming how it operates for the sake of our communities and our planet.

“Millions are already experiencing dangerous climate breakdown in extreme heatwaves and devastating floods, like those in Pakistan, as the world’s biggest polluters continue to shirk their responsibilities. They’ll continue to act only in the interests of their shareholders unless governments intervene.”

The Guardian revealed last month that BP has spent more than £800,000 on social media influence ads in the UK this year that champion the company’s investments in green energy. …”…

wsj.com 7-9-2022 Shareholders Stand Up for Profit and Against ESG at Chevron – Under pressure from asset managers, the company embraced policies that are harmful to investors. -By Vivek Ramaswamy

wsj.com 6/9/2022 ESG Can’t Square With Fiduciary Duty – State attorneys general issue a strong warning to investment managers and retirement fund trustees. By Jed Rubenfeld, William P. Barr

“Nineteen state attorneys general wrote a letter last month to BlackRock CEO Laurence D. Fink. They warned that BlackRock’s environmental, social and governance investment policies appear to involve “rampant violations” of the sole interest rule, a well-established legal principle. The sole interest rule requires investment fiduciaries to act to maximize financial returns, not to promote social or political objectives. …”…

vice.com instagram.com 9-2022 ‘Greenwashing’: Tree-Planting Schemes Are Just Creating Tree Cemeteries – Environmentalists claim councils are wasting public money with failed tree-planting initiatives so they can be “seen to be doing something” about the climate crisis. -By Sophia Smith Galer

bloomberg.com 1-9-2022 The Anti-ESG Crusader Who Wants to Pick a Fight With BlackRock – Vivek Ramaswamy, co-founder of Strive Asset Management, is a vocal critic of the hot Wall Street investing trend that Republicans such as Ron DeSantis say promotes a liberal agenda. – By Silla Brush, Saijel Kishan

cnbc.com 9-2022 Op-ed: ESG is not a new thing – by Javier Saade

…”…ESG is a catchphrase for an old idea: That corporate values are necessary to create long-term shareholder value. Squeezing financial gain and growth out of companies on a quarterly basis often comes at the expense of, not in tandem with, long term value creation. …

… Booz, Allen & Hamilton published an interesting piece almost 20 years ago summarizing a survey of top leaders and corporate behavior … The most cited values were ethical behavior, trust, teamwork, commitment to employees and customers, innovation, social and environmental responsibility, and commitment to diversity

… this 2002 HBR article highlights when corporate values and missions are sometimes hogwash, even harmful, because they are disconnected from reality.

Peter Drucker, sometimes called the “father of management,” many decades ago was advising executives to define the purpose and mission of their businesses as strategic imperatives and value creation pillars. What is our business; what do we want to become; and why — these were the questions he posed to titans of industry.

Contemporaneously, Milton Friedman published his “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits” essay. Its core thesis is that companies have no public or social responsibility and that their only responsibility is to maximize stockholder wealth.

Drucker and Friedman, outsized influences on us all, seemed to be at odds — but were they? …”…

bitcoinmagazine.com 20-8-2022 ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND GOVERNANCE (ESG) IS A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING – ESG seems like a positive way to protect the environment on a surface level, but a deeper examination reveals a more sinister path to totalitarianism. – MACRO JACK

hbr.org/ 1-8-2022 ESG Investing Isn’t Designed to Save the Planet – by Kenneth P. Pucker and Andrew King

It’s long past time we faced a hard truth: despite a historic surge in popularity, ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing will not tackle our generation’s urgent environmental and social challenges. Consider the battle against climate change: Estimates are that humanity will need to invest an average of $3.5 trillion annually over the next 30 years. Unfortunately, these trillions are not the same trillions that are presently invested in assets managed according to many forms of ESG investing — those are dedicated to assuring returns for shareholders, not delivering positive planetary impact.

The separation of profit and planet is by design. ESG ratings which underlie ESG fund selection are based on “single materiality” — the impact of the changing world on a company’s profits and losses, not the reverse. They also bear no connection to natural boundaries. According to Bloomberg, “[ESG] ratings don’t measure a company’s impact on the Earth and society. In fact, they gauge the opposite: the potential impact of the world on the company and its shareholders.”

Yet it’s hard to blame casual observers for believing that investing in an ESG investment fund is helping to save the planet. Marketing materials of ESG funds often make lofty statements about social or environmental aspirations, but the fine print reveals that the real goal is to assure shareholder profits. For example, a prior statement from State Street’s ESG Investment Statement mentions the need to encourage a “transition to a low-carbon, more sustainable, resource-efficient and circular economy,” but later it defines ESG issues as “events or conditions that, should they occur, could cause a negative impact on the value of an investment.” According to Henry Fernandez, CEO of the leading ESG ratings provider MSCI, ESG doublespeak has confused most individuals, many institutional investors, and even some portfolio managers.

This confusion has proven convenient when marketing some ESG products. For example, when BlackRock launched its U.S. Carbon Readiness Transition fund in April of 2021, the exchange-traded fund raised $1.25 billion in one day — a record. Among other things, the fund promised “broad exposure to large and mid-capitalization U.S. companies tilting toward those that BlackRock believes are better positioned to benefit from the transition to a low carbon economy.” That sounds good, but there is no mention of driving the transition and the fund holdings seem remarkably standard: Exxon, Chevron, and Conoco Phillips are among the fund’s top 100 holdings. According to a recent podcast interview with integrated reporting expert Robert Eccles, “If you read some of [the] prospectuses [of ESG funds] they use the word sustainability a bunch of times, [but] you really don’t have any sense as to what the criteria are that they are picking.”

The problems with ESG investing go well beyond hype. Acknowledging and clarifying all of ESG investing’s shortcomings will help pivot to more productive and urgent pursuits …

hbr.org 7-2022 ESG Reports Aren’t a Replacement for Real Sustainability – by Tensie Whelan

Summary: Many corporate leaders are growing frustrated that their ESG efforts are not being rewarded in capital markets. But that’s because they are focusing on reporting more than on doing sustainability. Can companies embed sustainability and make it a source of competitive advantage? Yes, but only if they make it part of strategy. To do that they should undertake SWOT analyses through a sustainability lens, look specifically for material ESG issues that are resulting in risks and opportunities for the company, and then undertake and track return on sustainable investment, setting benchmarks and tracking financial performance over time.

bloomberg.com/ 7-6-2022 ESG Insiders Demand Course Correction to Fix Industry Woes – Some are calling for creation of market watchdog to root out misselling of so-called sustainable funds. by Saijel Kishan

With ESG being increasingly maligned these days from both the inside and the outside, some of the industry’s early devotees say it’s time for a course correction. Jerome Dodson, the retired founder of one of the world’s largest ESG-focused investing firms, said a dedicated watchdog is needed to help police marketing claims. …

bloomberg.com/ 15-6-2022 Goldman Investigation Tarnishes ESG Halo as Investors Bail – With Goldman becoming the latest firm hit by an ESG probe, the industry’s problems may only just be starting.

ESG has become a punching bag for the far right, for disgruntled corporate executives and even industry insiders. But there’s one group whose growing disapproval might be the ultimate game changer. Retail investors are slowly starting to look under the hood of the $40 trillion environmental, social and governance industry that’s increasingly steering their savings, and many aren’t liking what they see. What’s more, some of the biggest names in finance are facing probes of their ESG businesses, with Goldman Sachs Asset Management and the investment arm of Deutsche Bank AG among the most prominent. …

And ESG returns, which rode out the worst lockdown-induced selloffs, also are starting to sag. By the second week of June, European ESG equity funds had, on average, lost 14%, compared with an 11% decline in the Stoxx Europe 600 index. In the US, they lost 16%, which was only marginally better than the S&P 500. But perhaps more importantly, doubts about how much good ESG actually does risk becoming a more lasting turn-off for regular people. …

Industry insiders readily admit that ESG remains hard to define. “What is an ESG fund? I literally have no idea myself,” said Gemma Woodward, head of responsible investment at Quilter Cheviot, which designs bespoke ESG products for professional and retail clients. Baker ended up ditching ESG altogether and going with a broad index fund. He might be among the few who even bothered to look into ESG in the first place, according to a recent survey by Charles Schwab. It found that 66% of UK retail savers don’t care whether their allocations are sustainable, and instead only want to maximize returns. …

aier.org 16-5-2022 A Musk Inspired Anti-ESG Takeover Wave? by Robert E. Wright

It’s fun to see memes suggesting that Elon Musk should buy Alphabet, Amazon, Coca Cola, Disney, Meta, Netflix, YouTube, and so forth, but of course he cannot afford all that. But we can. By we, I mean value investors. Musk’s purchase of Twitter has validated my critiques (see here, here, here, and here) of ESG-based investment (environment, social, governance), which despite its weak financial record currently constitutes about $2.7 trillion globally. And it has demonstrated the potential power of anti-ESG funds, which I have called Friedman Funds, after Milton.

An anti-ESG Friedman Fund would, firstly, short companies overvalued due to capricious or government-dictated ESG metrics and buy companies undervalued due to said metrics, and, secondly, buy controlling interests in potentially valuable companies that are going broke, or at least earning less than they could, because they went woke, as Musk and his investors recently did.

bloomberg.com 15-5-2022 Fund Managers Jump Into ESG Niche With Potential to Grow 2,000% – Schroders, Aviva and other UK asset managers seek to profit from demand for biodiversity-focused investment products – by Natasha White, Alastair Marsh

…”…As asset managers pile into this relatively new business area, climate activists and academics warn of it turning into a simple PR exercise, a distraction from the urgent task at hand.

…”…This is at best an immaterial distraction, unlikely to have any real impact on biodiversity or nature protection,” said Adrienne Buller, senior research fellow at Common Wealth, a UK-based think tank. “At worst, it contributes to the very real problem of actively creating excuses for regulatory inaction and a lack of public investment on environmental protection and restoration.”

In a report published last year, the World Bank outlined the potentially devastating consequences of inaction from an “unprecedented” decline in biodiversity, with roughly 1 million animal and plant species at risk of extinction. And a recent survey published by Citigroup Inc. found that almost 80% of respondents see an overlap between biodiversity risk and financial risk, and ranked it as a higher priority for environmental, social and governance-minded investors than social issues.

“While dedicated funds could be part of the solution, it’s important that these don’t distract from the urgent need to address the destructive impacts of current business models such as our system of food production,” said Simon Rawson, director of corporate engagement at UK nonprofit ShareAction.

A carbon offset is a sort of token that companies buy to fund projects that reduce or remove CO2, in theory cancelling out their carbon emissions. These projects are often nature-based initiatives such as planting trees and restoring peatland, but they’ve been criticized for being too narrow in focus.

So Schroders is looking for alternatives that are both biodiverse and carbon-sequestering, according to Andy Howard, head of global sustainable investments. …

… Gresham House is seeing profit potential from buying or leasing land with a view to improving its biodiversity and packaging that as a biodiversity net-gain credit. Climate Asset Management is working on something similar, which targets projects across multiple markets.

Outside the UK, many European asset managers already have natural-capital strategies. The investing unit of BNP Paribas SA started a fund last year to invest in companies that it assesses are helping restore ecosystems. A similar offering introduced in late 2020 by Swiss money manager Lombard Odier Group now has about $750 million of assets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. …

…On the disclosures front, there’s still a lack of data and uniform reporting standards. The Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, announced almost two years ago, plans to finalize a framework in the second half of 2023 for companies to report and act on biodiversity-related risks. Meantime, fund managers are moving ahead with their own solutions, opening the door to possible greenwashing, said Martin Berg, chief investment officer at Climate Asset Management.

“There are lots of new products being presented that say they have improvements to biodiversity,” he said. “This is obviously challenging because the guidance is missing.”

Some of the products being constructed are ripe for abuse, Jupiter’s Carlisle said. The world of carbon offsets has “lots of questions to be addressed,” she said, referring to credit quality and wider governance issues.

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ft.com 17-2-2022 Blockchain’s green revolution alarms climate experts

Greenwash blockchain digital token junk carbon fossil offsets FT 4 2022
Blockchain's green revolution alarms climate experts

fastcompany.com 13-4-2022 68% of U.S. execs admit their companies are guilty of greenwashing – And two-thirds of executives globally questioned whether their company’s sustainability efforts were genuine – by Adele Peters

..”…The survey results about greenwashing echo some outside analyses. The NewClimate Institute, a nonprofit, recently assessed 25 large companies with goals to reach net zero emissions, and found that they were exaggerating their progress and on track to reduce their emissions by only 40%, not 100%. (Some of the companies argue that the report’s methodology was flawed.) A new UN panel will also study corporate net zero plans to understand how much is greenwashing, and to issue new recommendations for how to set credible net zero goals. Some regulators are also stepping up enforcement of misleading claims. In the U.K., the number of ads banned for greenwashing tripled in the last year. The European Commission is now considering new regulations that would ban vague environmental claims that can’t be proven, along with other misleading claims. …”…

bloomberg.com 16-3-2022 Greenwashing Is Increasingly Making ESG Moot – Fossil fuel holdings, Russia’s war and revelations about who’s investing there are battering the strategy’s original meaning – With more big so-called ESG funds investing in companies that sell the fossil fuels whose burning is behind global warming, the investment category is fast losing its purpose. By Tim Quinson

theguardian.com 16-2-2022 Oil firms’ climate claims are greenwashing, study concludes Most comprehensive scientific analysis to date finds words are not matched by actions

cnn.com 15-2-2022 Major banks pledging net zero are pouring money into the dirtiest fossil fuel – by Reuters

“Financial institutions channeled more than $1.5 trillion into the coal industry in loans and underwriting from January 2019 to November 2021, even though many have made net-zero pledges, a report by a group of 28 non-government organizations showed.Reducing coal use is a key part of global efforts to slash climate-warming greenhouse gases and bring emissions down to “net zero” by the middle of the century, and governments, firms and financial institutions across the world have pledged to take action.But banks continue to fund 1,032 firms involved in the mining, trading, transportation and utilization of coal, the research showed. Financial institutions channeled more than $1.5 trillion into the coal industry in loans and underwriting from January 2019 to November 2021, even though many have made net-zero pledges, a report by a group of 28 non-government organizations showed.Reducing coal use is a key part of global efforts to slash climate-warming greenhouse gases and bring emissions down to “net zero” by the middle of the century, and governments, firms and financial institutions across the world have pledged to take action.But banks continue to fund 1,032 firms involved in the mining, trading, transportation and utilization of coal, the research showed. Banks like to argue that they want to help their coal clients transition, but the reality is that almost none of these companies are transitioning,” said Katrin Ganswind, head of financial research at German environmental group Urgewald, which led the research. “And they have little incentive to do so as long as bankers continue writing them blank checks..”…

climatechangenews.com 6-2-2022 Science Based Targets initiative accused of providing a ‘platform for greenwashing’ – Nestlé, Ikea and Unilever are among brands the New Climate Institute found did not live up to the 1.5C-compatible label they’d been awarded By Joe Lo

“The Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has been slammed as a “platform for greenwashing”, in a critical analysis published today. The New Climate Institute examined the climate plans of 18 multinational corporations which SBTi had rubber-stamped as compatible with 1.5C or 2C of global warming. “For at least 11 of those we find that their targets are highly contentious, due to subtle technicalities,” the report’s authors said. Nestlé, Ikea and Unilever are among the brands with climate plans SBTi judged to meet the strongest 1.5C standard, but which NCI found to have “very low integrity”…”…

theguardian.com 2-2-2022 Activists accuse drinks firm Innocent of ‘greenwashing’ with ad – Plastics Rebellion complains to advertising watchdog about claims made in British TV advert – byHelena Horton

…”…Matt Palmer of the direct action group Plastics Rebellion said: “Greenwashing is dangerous – in the case of Innocent it’s one thing to hide your ecocidal practices, that’s bad enough, but to go to the next level and pretend you’re ‘fixing up the planet’ is far worse. It means that people will willingly – and unwittingly – opt in to support your project in the belief that they are doing good for the planet.”

Plastics Rebellion pointed out that Innocent was owned by Coca-Cola, which has frequently been accused of creating pollution, and was recently found to be the brand most littered on British beaches. The group also claimed Innocent created 32,000 plastic bottles an hour, and said plastic bottles were responsible for a large amount of marine pollution.

The group also said that by repeating the mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle”, Innocent was guilty of “trivialising the plastic crisis”, adding: “Recycling only happens 9% of the time [and] much plastic waste is still landfilled.” Plastics Rebellion has asked that Innocent be banned from making adverts the group described as “greenwashing” in the future…”…

ESG Reporting, Government, Regulators

esgtoday.com 31-1-2022 California Senate Passes Bill for First Law in US Requiring Companies to Disclose all GHG Emissions – by Mark Segal

oilprice.com 23-1-2022 New ESG Wave Hits Wall With Disinterested Investors
The ESG trend has transformed markets in recent years, but some funds may have become slightly too obsessed with it. – Some of Europe’s biggest ETF providers have changed the indices that some of their products track, a move that is causing resentment among fund selectors. – Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF recorded a massive 64.31-percent gain last year. By Irina Slav

wsj.com 17-1-2022 Credit Suisse Shows Flaws of Trying to Quantify ESG Risks – Swiss bank has endured repeated scandals and executive departures, but done well on many scoring systems designed to spot nonfinancial risks – by James Mackintosh

thisismoney.co.uk 16-1-2022 Is now the time to put fossil fuels back in your portfolio? Your investment could even HELP the planet – Oil, gas and mining companies provide some of the market’s highest dividends. However, their environmental impact means they are mired in controversy. Some do both harm and good, for example by mining materials for electric cars. Others are cleaning up their act, and investor funds could assist in this. Debate rages among investors about whether to put money in ‘cancelled’ firms – by Danielle Levy

interestingengineering.com 31-1-22 Shell’s Carbon Capture Plant Creates More Emissions Than It Captures – Surprise, surprise – by Derya Ozdemir

Oil giant Shell’s Quest plant has been designed to capture carbon emissions from oil sands operations and store them underground to reduce carbon emissions. However, according to a recent study by the human rights organization Global Witness, the facility actually emits more greenhouse gas emissions than it captures

irishtimes.com 13-1-2022 Green’ nuclear power or greenwashing? by ÉAMON Ó CIOSÁIN,

“Sir, – The current heave by the nuclear lobby and certain member states to have nuclear power approved as somehow environmentally positive by the EU is an audacious piece of greenwashing. In terms of moving toward a new energy economy, nuclear power cannot be viewed as transitional given that the timescale from construction to storing of waste stretches to thousands of years. Recent letter writers to your columns have sidestepped this issue, as well as avoiding mention of disasters such as Fukushima (still ongoing) and others.

Much is made of the fact that radioactive fuel is not a fossil fuel whereas large-scale use of fossil-based energy is needed for nuclear generator construction. In addition to nuclear and fossil pollution in this industry, there is the dirty issue of mining uranium in some of the poorest and most unstable countries in the world.

There are question marks over two new nuclear reactor prototypes being promoted in present European plans. The French EPR reactors (only two and still in construction) have been bedevilled by endless cracks and soldering problems. The EPR in Finland is now 12 years beyond its deadline and costs have risen from €3 billion to an estimated €12 billion. Small modular reactors (the other prong of the French strategy being lobbied for in Europe) are in their early days and their cost and operational quality are as yet uncertain.

Wind power is often criticised as being unreliable and requiring backup. So is nuclear power. At the time of writing, the four largest reactors in France (among others) are out of service and coal-fired stations are likely to be used so as to avoid winter power cuts. Across Europe, older generators are being closed down, reducing availability. Reliable? “

bloomberg.com 12-1-2022 Not Everyone Likes ESG – If you are the chief executive officer of a public company, there are various environmental, social and governance things you could do. You could, like, switch your widget factory to use..”… By Matt Levine

erm.com 10-1-2022 ERM named as a leading ESG & Sustainability Consultancy in new independent research

ERM, the world’s largest pure play sustainability consultancy, has been named as a leader in the ESG & Sustainability Consultancy industry, according to new independent research.

The Verdantix Green Quadrant: ESG & Sustainability Consulting 2022 report is based on a comprehensive assessment of ERM’s services, extensive briefings with ERM experts and in-depth customer interviews conducted by Verdantix analysts. It benchmarks leading industry firms according to 15 different capability criteria.

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economist.com 8-1-2020 The EU’s green-investing “taxonomy” could go global – But will it steer capital towards deserving projects?

economist.com 8-1-2022 The meaning of green- The EU’s green rules will do too little to tackle climate change – Relying on investors to save the planet using a “taxonomy” has limits

greenbiz.com 5-1-2022 The year ahead in ESG: More scrutiny, better boards and the growth of greenwash – By Grant Harrison

The world of ESG and sustainable finance saw some truly eye-popping numbers last year, such as $130 trillion via the Global Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) committed to using science-based guidelines to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, or the $35 trillion invested in some form of ESG strategy by mid year.

Big numbers should foster commensurately big changes, right? Well, the Mauna Loa observatory read 420 ppm of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere; the International Energy Agency (IEA), a group not historically known to align with activists, stated that coal development must cease quickly if we’re to meet the goal of net-zero emissions by midcentury. Meanwhile, the world’s largest asset manager continues to hold an exposure of around $1.2 billion in India’s largest coal firm.

As the highly contentious Carmichael mine gets its first shipment of coal ready for export, BlackRock has, as of this writing, not changed its position. This set-up encapsulates a theme I’ll be hyper-focused on in 2022: substantive actions from the ESG ecosystem of institutional investors, ratings agencies, corporate reporters and financial institutions that yield measurable progress in line with their lofty, and commendable, commitments. …”…

more green washarticles 2021 here

cleantechnica.com 31/12/2021 That Inedible Dish Called The EU Taxonomy – Greenwashing Galore – Greenwashing is not a problem for the green transition, it is THE problem. By Luca Bonaccorsi

…”…Environmentalists know all too well the limitations of disclosures. When T&E succeeded in making carmakers publish the vehicle’s emissions on ads, we thought people would naturally choose the ones with lower emissions. Then SUVs came along, and buying a 2-tonne tractor to face the ‘jungle’ in Paris or Milan or Berlin became more important than the quality of the air people were breathing. With sustainable finance, lobbyists didn’t even grant us the right to print the truth on the label, in small print, on the last page. Not even that. The result is that the Taxonomy has gone from being a pioneering and bold attempt to clean up finance, to a dangerous tool for greenwashing – a polite word for fraud. Are there lessons to be learnt for 2022? Two at least. First, greenwashing is not a problem for the green transition, it is THE problem. One that calls for appropriate measures. Second, we cannot expect institutions to address the transition by consulting the very same lobbyists that are fighting against it. And if institutions fail to address greenwashing, it’ll be down to us, civil society, to straighten things up. Are you ready for another year of fights.”

fastcompany.com 1/1/2020 Science, conscious consumers, and next-gen founders will drive ‘ESG’ innovation in 2022 – Members of the Fast Company Impact Council say business and cultural forces will help push environmental, social, and governance leadership.

bloomberg.com 31/12/2021 BlackRock Made ESG the Hottest Ticket on Wall Street – Stampede into sustainable funds got push from model portfolios – main result is ‘giving them more fees,’ says former executive – By Cam Simpson , Saijel Kishan
“Almost two years have passed since Larry Fink, the chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., declared that a fundamental reshaping of global capitalism was underway and that his firm would help lead it by making it easier to invest in companies with favorable environmental and social practices. Lately, he’s been taking a victory round …”…

qz.com/ 23/12/ 2021 The problem with ESG investing, in one chart by Tim McDonnell

“Investors poured more than $120 billion this year into exchange-traded funds marketed as comprising companies with strong environmental, social, and governance (ESG) track records… These funds ostensibly drive capital toward socially and environmentally conscious corporations, and allow their owners—for the most part, pension funds and other large institutional investors—to claim they are reducing their investment in unethical or destructive companies. But BlackRock and the other asset managers that compile the most popular of these funds don’t always agree on what “ESG” really means or how to build a portfolio around it. As a result, many ESG ETFs have a carbon footprint that is scarcely lower than the S&P 500…

…A key problem is that portfolio managers, even of ESG funds, typically assign very little weight to a company’s climate performance, according to a comprehensive analysis (pdf) in August by economists at EDHEC Business School in France…

problem with ESG in 1 chart - qz -12 -2021

theguardian.com 16/12/21 Why ethical investors need to look beyond the ‘do no harm v do good’ debate Some responsible investors simply avoid ‘sin’ stocks, others only invest in companies that make a positive impact. But is this binary approach the best way to make the world a better place? by Nick Huber

corpgov.law.harvard.edu 15/12/2021 The Corporate Director’s Guide to ESG by Maria Castañón Moats, Paul DeNicola,

“For many, the term ESG (environmental, social, governance), conjures notions of investors chasing feel-good stories of sustainability, diversity, and ethics. But given the heightened interests from various stakeholders, corporate directors know ESG is much more. Far from being just window dressing, making organizations appear socially responsible to the outside world, there are real risks at play when it comes to ESG issues. And there are even more opportunities to be seized…

…Ratings and rating agencies – What do they do? – Rating agencies gather data about a company’s ESG efforts through direct surveys (which can be time consuming) or through the company’s publicly available disclosures. They then provide ESG scores based on their view of a company’s risk exposure versus their industry peers. Qualitative and quantitative data inform these ratings. Rating agencies also guide investors through the publication of benchmarking data. And some use their ratings to create ESG indices that might be licensed to asset managers and others to create ESG funds and other financial products.

Who are they? – MSCI, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), Sustainalytics, and S&P Global are among the most prominent. The methodologies used by these agencies vary and the resulting ratings are not consistently aligned with a particular ESG disclosure framework or set of standards and may not meet the needs of all institutional investors…”…https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2021/12/15/the-corporate-directors-guide-to-esg/embed/#?secret=wkSWeu56vX

thetimes.co.uk/ 9/12/2021 ESG: the next mis-selling scandal – Fads come and fads go in business law — remember the hysteria around implementation of the EU’s general data protection rules? The latest involves three letters: ESG. by Jonathan Ames

This is not a fashionable party drug sweeping revitalised nightclubs, but an abbreviation for the term “environment, social and governance”. Anodyne it may seem, but some claim that it presents a danger to law firms’ corporate clients and could be the next mis-selling scandal.

esgtoday.com 9/12/2021 EU Council Clears EU Taxonomy Rules for Climate for Implementation in January 2022 by Mark Segal https://www.esgtoday.com/eu-council-clears-eu-taxonomy-rules-for-climate-for-implementation-in-january-2022/embed/#?secret=D4Op8SrU5M

bloomberg.com/ MSCI, the largest ESG rating company, doesn’t even try to measure the impact of a corporation on the world. It’s all about whether the world might mess with the bottom line. By Cam Simpson, Akshat Rathi, and Saijel Kishan

…”Yesterday’s heterodoxy is today’s Wall Street sales cliché. Investment firms have been capturing trillions of dollars from retail investors, pension funds, and others with promises that the stocks and bonds of big companies can yield tidy returns while also helping to save the planet or make life better for its people. The sale of these investments is now the fastest-growing segment of the global financial-services industry, thanks to marketing built on dire warnings about the climate crisis, wide-scale social unrest, and the pandemic.”

…”…No single company is more critical to Wall Street’s new profit engine than MSCI, which dominates a foundational yet unregulated piece of the business: producing ratings on corporate “environmental, social, and governance” practices. BlackRock and other investment salesmen use these ESG ratings, as they’re called, to justify a “sustainable” label on stock and bond funds. For a significant number of investors, it’s a powerful attraction. Yet there’s virtually no connection between MSCI’s “better world” marketing and its methodology. That’s because the ratings don’t measure a company’s impact on the Earth and society. In fact, they gauge the opposite: the potential impact of the world on the company and its shareholders. MSCI doesn’t dispute this characterization. It defends its methodology as the most financially relevant for the companies it rates. …

The most striking feature of the system is how rarely a company’s record on climate change seems to get in the way of its climb up the ESG ladder—or even to factor at all. McDonald’s Corp., one of the world’s largest beef purchasers, generated more greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 than Portugal or Hungary, because of the company’s supply chain. McDonald’s produced 54 million tons of emissions that year, an increase of about 7% in four years. Yet on April 23, MSCI gave McDonald’s a ratings upgrade, citing the company’s environmental practices. MSCI did this after dropping carbon emissions from any consideration in the calculation of McDonald’s rating. Why? Because MSCI determined that climate change neither poses a risk nor offers “opportunities” to the company’s bottom line. …

…MSCI’s upgrade of McDonald’s didn’t take into account the company’s greenhouse gas emissions. But they’ve increased steadily. Emissions at offices and restaurants (Scope 1 emissions) have fallen, and those facilities are using less and/or cleaner energy (Scope 2 emissions are those produced by the company’s energy providers). However, increases to emissions in the company’s supply chain (Scope 3 emissions) greatly outweigh the savings. MSCI then recalculated McDonald’s environmental score to give it credit for mitigating “risks associated with packaging material and waste” relative to its peers. That included McDonald’s installation of recycling bins at an unspecified number of locations in France and the U.K.—countries where the company faces potential sanctions or regulations if it doesn’t recycle. In this assessment, as in all others, MSCI was looking only at whether environmental issues had the potential to harm the company. Any mitigation of risks to the planet was incidental. McDonald’s declined to comment on its ESG rating from MSCI.

This approach often yields a kind of doublespeak within the pages of a rating report. An upgrade based on a chemical company’s “water stress” score, for example, doesn’t involve measuring the company’s impact on the water supplies of the communities where it makes chemicals. Rather, it measures whether the communities have enough water to sustain their factories. This applies even if MSCI’s analysts find little evidence the company is trying to restrict discharges into local water systems….”…

wsj.com/ 25/11/2021 How Did Activision Pass the ESG Test? Asset managers seem willing to include any company paying lip service to progressive priorities. By Allysia Finley

“How thoroughly do investment managers screen the companies in their environmental, social and governance funds? Not very, if the example of videogame company Activision Blizzard is typical. Activision—maker of “Call of Duty,” “World of Warcraft” and “Candy Crush Saga”—has drawn numerous complaints from employees and regulators of sexual misconduct, retaliation and discrimination, yet it’s included in many prominent ESG funds. In July the company was sued by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Among other…”…

reuters.com 23/11/2021 ESG ratings’ big dogs may need to learn new tricks By George Hay

reuters.com 23/11/2021 Transparency of ESG investment ratings faces regulatory scrutiny By Huw Jones

cityam.com 23/11/2021 Exclusive: Most investors could not care less about ESG and sustainability
by Michael Willems

“With COP26 only weeks behind us, more than half of UK investors admit sustainable investing is not a priority for them, with just under 45 per cent saying it is important and it is a priority in their investment portfolio. In fact, less than a third of British investors say COP26 and the UK government’s stance on climate change have accelerated their ESG investment plans to pump capital into sustainable assets. Even fewer, just 19 per cent, consider ESG investments to be a savvy financial strategy at present…”…

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23/11/2021 Deutsche Bank’s Rising Star Has a Rapid Change of Fortune – DWS greenwashing investigations have cast an unwelcome light on Asoka Woehrmann, and on Deutsche’s asset-management ambitions. By Steven Arons , Saijel Kishan

“At the start of this year Asoka Woehrmann was sitting pretty. The boss of Deutsche Bank AG’s asset-management arm, DWS Group, had hitched his firm’s wagon to the surge in investor demand for all things ESG — promising to make “sustainability the core of what we do” — and his rebrand was paying off. Client money was pouring in and DWS’s share price was rocketing. The hunt was on for big acquisitions. Behind the scenes, however, the green paint job was already starting to fade.

On a February conference call, DWS Chief Investment Officer Stefan Kreuzkamp warned of a “frozen middle” at the firm, referring to the many fund managers who were dubious about “environmental, social and governance” investing and weren’t engaged in doing it. DWS sustainability head Desiree Fixler was voicing similar concerns, prompting Woehrmann to tell her angrily, “Everybody hates you,” according to Fixler’s recounting in an email to DWS’s chairman.

It was the start of a chain of events that included Fixler’s March firing, her emergence as a whistleblower and a three-pronged investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Germany’s BaFin into her allegations that DWS overstated its ESG capabilities. Woehrmann’s future is likely to be determined by where these probes end up. For fund managers everywhere — greedily eyeing an ESG market that’s expected to surpass $50 trillion of assets under management by 2025 — this is the first real test of how aggressively regulators will crack down on any “greenwashing” accusations against their industry. For Deutsche Bank and DWS, the stakes are higher still: Anything that hinders their involvement in the ESG gold rush would be bad news indeed. DWS has said repeatedly that it did nothing wrong, and money is still flooding into its funds, suggesting clients are unfazed by the furor. But conversations with more than a dozen current and former DWS and Deutsche Bank staff, and other interested parties, indicate it wasn’t only Fixler who was asking awkward questions on ESG — as the Kreuzkamp comments show. …

Apart from Fixler, everyone who spoke for this article wanted to remain anonymous when discussing private company matters. A DWS spokesperson said: “We reject the allegations of our former employee and cannot comment further given the ongoing labor law matter.” Fixler has sued the firm for wrongful dismissal…

DWS’s stock soared under current CEO before news of the probes broke. Heartened by his early successes, Woehrmann’s sustainable reboot went into overdrive. … Internally, though, not everyone was persuaded by the green tilt. …

…”… DWS isn’t alone and until recently all large fund companies had portfolio managers who were reluctant to embrace ESG considerations or even rejected them.” Alone or not, Fixler’s allegations have put DWS squarely in the sights of regulators. The former group sustainability officer, whose DWS contract only started six months before Woehrmann sacked her, says the firm’s “ESG integration” process — a way of screening investments — was being ignored lower down the organization.

Green Propaganda? On March 12, the day after her firing, DWS published its yearly results, labeling roughly half its assets under management as “ESG integrated.” According to the whistleblower, the figures were ESG “propaganda.” … Claire Peel, the DWS chief financial officer, says the firm has been focused recently on talking to clients to put its side of the story. Judging by flow data, those talks are bearing fruit. Last month DWS reported a spike in new customer money. The greenwashing accusations have left “no material impact” on its business, Peel said on a recent conference call… Equity analysts are talking positively about the firm again; Citigroup Inc.’s point out that sustainability rules are subjective, so they “struggle to see how regulators can hold DWS to account” … But some investors aren’t yet convinced. The share price still hasn’t recovered from its August plunge, and sits more than 12% below where it was before the probes became public. In an industry where the biggest beasts are searching for juicy M&A targets, the relative strength of your market value matters. At DWS the strategy now is to sit out the controversy, with Woehrmann largely keeping out of the limelight. Everything depends on whether the DoJ, SEC and BaFin decide there’s a case to answer.”

klimavest.de/ 2021 ESG Kriterien: Was es bei einem ESG Investment zu beachten gilt – Wofür der ESG-Ansatz steht, wofür er nicht steht und wie er sich von anderen nachhaltigen Investments unterscheidet.

bloomberg.com 16/11/2021 What’s Wrong With ESG Investing as Explained Through the Medium of Ohio

“What is Fifth Third Bancorp? … Fifth Third is very controversial. In the world of ESG ratings no one can agree on quite where the bank stands, exactly. Fifth Third’s Global ESG Rank from Standard & Poor’s comes in at 49 — handily beating industry averages on all three ESG metrics. At rival ESG ratings firm MSCI, however, the bank receives a paltry ‘B’ rating — well below average for its peer group and making it a laggard among 190 other banking companies. Using a simple translation framework, S&P’s ESG ranking works out to something like a ‘BBB,’ far above where MSCI rates the same company.

In this way, Middle America’s mid-sized bank is emblematic of a wider problem now plaguing one of the hottest corners of finance: No one can quite agree on where companies stand when it comes to the trifecta of ESG concerns — environmental, social and governance — that has morphed into a responsible investing craze worth trillions of dollars. In fact, a quick tour through Ohio — once a major Midwestern manufacturing capital before falling into ‘Rust Belt’ status in the 1980s as factories shifted abroad — can give us a peek into the failure of socially-responsible capitalism to so far actually improve society….2…

theguardian.com 15/11/2021 How workers unknowingly fund the climate crisis with their pensions – As fossil fuels become more volatile, pensioners may be exposed to greater risk unless their funds divest byJulia Rock of the Daily Poster

…”In early October, an oil pipeline owned by Amplify Energy spilled into the ocean in southern California. Up to 132,000 gallons of crude oil leaked into the waters off the coast of Orange county, possibly the largest oil spill in California in decades, prompting local, state, and federal criminal investigations. Complicating matters is that Amplify, the product of a merger and vulture capital restructuring of another bankrupt oil company, may not have enough cash to pay for cleanup or to decommission the pipeline. That means taxpayers could end up bearing the costs. This ecological and financial nightmare was in part funded by the retirement savings of school teachers in Pennsylvania…”…

theconversation.com 9/11/2021 ESG investing has a blind spot that puts the $35 trillion industry’s sustainability promises in doubt: Supply chains

“If you own stocks, chances are good you have heard the term ESG. It stands for environmental, social and governance, and it’s a way to laud corporate leaders who take sustainability – including climate change – and social responsibility seriously, and punish those who do not. In less than two decades since a United Nations report drew attention to the concept, ESG investing has evolved into a US$35 trillion industry. Money managers overseeing one-third of total U.S. assets under management said they used ESG criteria in 2020, and by 2025 global assets managed in portfolios labeled “ESG” are expected to reach $53 trillion. These investments have gained momentum in part because they cater to investors’ growing desire to have a positive impact on society. By quantifying a company’s actions and outcomes on environmental, social and governance issues, ESG measures offer investors a way to make informed trading decisions. However, investors’ trust in ESG funds may be misplaced. As scholars in the field of supply chain management and sustainable operations, we see a major flaw in how rating agencies, such as Bloomberg, MSCI and Sustainalytics, are measuring companies’ ESG risk: the performance of their supply chains…”…

linkedin.com 11/11/2021 Stephen Dover ESG: E and S are driving G

…”It is tempting to believe that ESG—and perhaps especially “E”—will impose heavy costs on businesses that will ultimately be borne by their owners and customers. While it is true that the costs—especially of a makeover of energy sources—are significant, in the long run the financial benefits—including for shareholders—may be even greater. To take one example, estimates from Bloomberg’s New Energy Finance group (BNEF) indicate that spending of US$5.8 trillion per annum through 2050 will be necessary to shift energy supply and infrastructure to mitigate climate change. Governments cannot fund that alone. The private economy and businesses will have to participate. Over US$3 trillion of green, social, sustainability, and sustainability-linked bonds have already been issued year to date, indicating that private capital is already shifting and investors are clearly eager to participate. Yet even these enormous sums represent the tip of the proverbial iceberg…”…

gm caw 2021 : nb: most funding will be via credit, not savings. Private credit issue has to conform to return on “investment” expectations. Hence ESG as greenwashing fossil profits unless tax has green-taxed the product out of profitabilty. In spite of all the green talk one is currently still subsidising fossils, let alone systematically taxing them. Even though for once most economists, mainstream and beyond, recommend carbon tax, it’s not happening.https://gaiageld.com/2021/11/07/cop-out-cop-and-the-elephant-in-the-room/embed/#?secret=fnUxdYKPBx

bloomberg.com 9/11/2021 BlackRock, Brookfield Pipeline Bids Underscore an ESG Dilemma
By Silla Brush and Layan Odeh – “Larry Fink is among Wall Street’s most outspoken leaders when it comes to climate change. He also just placed a bid on a major fossil-fuel asset…”…

institutionalinvestor.com 8/11/2021 Head of Alternatives Association Calls for ESG Label to Be Dismantled – The environmental, social, and governance investing movement has an impressive array of goals — and that could be a problem. by John L. Bowman

…”If we are attempting to measure everything, we are actually measuring nothing. “ESG” was coined in a 2004 United Nations study that precipitated the creation of the now ubiquitous UN Principles for Responsible Investment. At the time, the attention investment professionals and corporate leaders paid to climate change, gender diversity, and healthy labor practices was anemic. The world needed a tool by which to confront the status quo of hyperfinancialized capitalism, which sought to optimize profit at the expense of social outcomes. Combining these vital and neglected factors into a single thematic construct fostered a powerful and much overdo global pep rally that took unsustainable business models to task. While we still have much work to do in all of these disciplines, the ESG moniker has resulted in significant progress. …”…reuters.com 3/11/2021 COP26 Global standards body takes aim at company ‘greenwashing’ claims By Huw Jones

ISSB to be based in Frankfurt
Chair and vice-chair to be announced soon
New body seen as step to mandatory climate disclosures
First set of disclosures due in second half of 2022
Regulators looking at potential checks on disclosures

…”…”Greenwashing” by companies eager to massage their environmental credentials and increase their appeal to ethical investors came under scrutiny on Wednesday with the launch of a standards body that aims to weed out unjustified climate claims. The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) seeks to build on and replace a patchwork of voluntary disclosure practices that have had mixed success, with “baseline” global standards that companies could use to tell investors about the impact of climate change on their business….”…

financialpost.com 27/10/2021 Ex-BlackRock executive Tariq Fancy on Larry Fink, Greta Thunberg and why ESG won’t save us – Baby boomers are not in the climate-change fight in the way Greta Thunberg’s generation is – by Gabriel Friedman

….” Q: But during your tenure at BlackRock, lots of investors started to seek out funds or companies that claim to have an Environment Sustainability and Governance or ESG focus. From inside BlackRock, what’s the difference between the message that corporations are sending about ESG and what you think is actually happening?

A: I think the fundamental challenge is that even if corporations want to do that they can’t because the system is structured in a way to maximize profits and very often maximizing profits means doing something that is not good for society, including contributing to climate change. Companies will say that they’re doing stuff — I don’t call them liars. I would say that whatever they’re doing has to serve some purpose of the business and add shareholder value, otherwise, they really wouldn’t be doing it. And if there’s no one telling you and actually validating what it means to be green, or to be sustainable, then you have a race to the bottom where every company and every participant wants to say they are doing it. To the extent that companies can do things on the margin under the guise of ESG, which I think is definitely possible, in some form they probably have been doing that for decades. The problem with ESG, as you could see in the last number of years, is it grows alongside inequality and carbon emissions and all the things that it’s meant to address. So on the margins, I think CEOs can do something and stakeholder capitalism has some relevance, but it’s not something we can rely on for society’s most important challenges. And I’d argue those are inequality and climate change.

… Q: You have said that the U.S, and Europe are starting to look into definitions of green. Are you optimistic that this could mark a sweeping rule change that would help create a market solution?

A: No, I’m not. I think there’s a small problem, and there’s a big problem. The small problem is that many of these funds are mislabelled. They claim to do one thing, but you know, you dig underneath the hood and you know, they’re mislabelled, or they’re playing fast and loose. But that’s the minor problem.

The major problem is that even if they’re labelled correctly, they don’t have any real world impact. For me to create real world impacts . It’s about regulating the real economy. Put it this way, if you want less carbon emissions, you’d be better off going and putting a carbon tax on all the actual emitters of carbon. If you make an underlying business activity less profitable, less capital will flow there. ….

… The second point, is, what needs to happen is a significant debate within the business community about what is responsible business? We have just seen a systemic crisis, with the pandemic , where we needed to flatten the curve, and we realized that that required government action to do it. I don’t think business leaders have a leg to stand on to say we don’t need government action to address climate change.

And they’re saying that now: Larry Fink said, at the beginning of this year that I prefer capitalists to self-regulate. The Business Roundtable has been lobbying aggressively against climate legislation, and against carbon taxes. The same Business Roundtable came out with a statement on stakeholder capitalism. So they’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. … And so, just like the Business Roundtable supported closing schools and making masks mandatory indoors during COVID, they have to support aggressive climate legislation. They’re not doing it today for the simple reason that the timeline is so long, and it’s outside of the guise of their incentives.

With climate change, they’re able to just kick the can down the road, because the truth is their incentives are short term. That’s the fundamental issue is timelines and I’m optimistic because I think this is an intergenerational fight that’s going to start rolling. The reaction I’m seeing now is that young people, they’re realizing, this is not serving us. If you’re a 22-year-old at BlackRock, you’re at the bottom of the totem pole, and so you gain the least from the status quo and you’re most at risk from inaction.

And actually, if you’re Larry Fink, who’s 68, it’s the exact opposite: you’re at the top of the totem pole, gain the most from the current system and has the least at risk from the consequences of inaction. There’s a significant element of privilege for business leaders who are saying we’re all in this together. Frankly, they’re baby boomers who really are not in this together in the same way that Greta Thunberg’s generation would be.”

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businessinsider.com 27/10/2021 Wall Street’s new ‘sustainable’ investing fad is a scam by Bernard Sharfman

fortune.com/ 26/10/2021 Meet 20 (small) companies looking to save the future of ESG By Lucinda Shen

“Small things can make a big difference. While the adage is usually wielded in the context of changing habits for the better, it also applies here to Fortune’s annual Impact 20 list. Our annual Change the World list points to the giants of industry doing good with their dollars. By contrast, the Impact 20 points to relatively smaller venture-capital and private-equity-backed companies looking to improve lives as part of their business model—turning ESG and sustainability from buzzy terms into simple parts of everyday operations. …”…

thecrunch.com 21/10/2021 ESG and shareholder activism: A tsunami is coming to Silicon Valley Derek Zaba, Sharon Flanagan, Martin Wellington

…”For the first time, investor pressure related to an ESG issue (in this case, climate change), directly led to substantial turnover in the board of a public company. Activist shareholders are tapping into new and powerful ESG themes as leverage in their activist campaigns to change control and strategy at public companies.

Is the technology sector next? – Historically, the pattern of investor pressure on governance issues (the “G” in ESG) in public companies is to successively tackle issue after issue, winning on one issue and then moving on to the next. One good example of this is the migration of public companies to have annual elections for all directors for a one-year term rather than staggered elections of a portion of the directors for a three-year term — a so-called “classified board.”…”…

ft.com 16/10/2021 B Sabrier : ESG illusion raises ethical issues

reuters.com 20/9/2021 Central bank group BIS warns of green asset bubble risk By Marc Jones

…”The central bank to the world’s central banks, the Bank for International Settlements, has warned of the growing risk of a price bubble in environmentally friendly-focused asset markets. Increasing urgency to limit global warming and tackle other issues such as racial and social inequality has seen Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing explode in popularity in recent years. Some estimates indicate ESG-focused assets have soared to a value of $35 trillion and now account for more than a third of all assets professionally managed by banks and investment funds. A narrower definition including only exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds with ESG or socially responsible investment (SRI) mandates points to even faster, tenfold growth, to approximately $2 trillion. This is evidenced in assets such as clean energy and electric car stocks and green bonds, which have soared in recent years. …

Claudio Borio, head of its monetary and economic department, referred to it as the “green bubble” risk, highlighting how the surge in ETFs and mutual funds was comparable to parts of the mortgage backed security market in the runup to the global financial crisis. …

Current holdings of ESG linked bonds are only estimated to account for about 1% of total bond portfolios for both U.S. insurance companies and European banks. Borio did also warn of “definitional risk” and of so-called “greenwashing”, where the environmental benefits of certain assets were potentially being over-exaggerated. If those exaggerations are exposed, values could then plunge. “…

thetimes.co.uk 9/2021 Green gilts risk being a distraction from the hard graft of hitting net zero by Philip Aldrick

The government will issue its first green bond in just over two weeks’ time. This revolutionary moment will mean that the Debt Management Office will sell UK public debt through a group of gilt-edged market-makers to pension funds and other investors to pay for public spending. Just as the DMO does once or twice every week — only this time, the gilts will be “green”, because the money will be solely for “eligible green projects”, such as zero-emission buses, investment in wind energy, subsidies for household heat pumps and flood defences. The kind of spending, in other words, that the government is committed to making to hit its legislated net zero target, whether or not the gilts are colour-stamped. Green gilts are a PR stunt.

bloomberg.com 9/2021 Regulators Intensify ESG Scrutiny as Greenwashing Explodes – Pressure is increasing on fund managers to show they’re being truthful with customers about what they’re selling. By Tim Quinson

ft.com 8/2021 The ESG investing industry is dangerous – A BlackRock dissident speaks truth

efinancialcareers.com 31/8/2021 How bankers really feel about diversity and ESG by Sarah Butcher

A new study* of six front office investment bankers by academics at University College London found that while money is a key incentive for people going into banking jobs, it’s not the only reason people choose to enter the industry. ….

…”As anyone who’s tried to quit banking knows, however, leaving isn’t that easy. Some of those interviewed noted that the pay was a “shackle” and that it wasn’t entirely clear what they would do instead. One noted that, “my brother would tell you that I am a total capitalist.” Another said that ESG was all very well, as long as it didn’t affect his pay. Ultimately, most of those interviewed said that the main purpose of banks was to keep clients and shareholders happy rather than to pursue broader social functions. “There are people in the bank who are interested in it, equally there are a lot of people who don’t give a sh*t. You know for them, it’s a job – they want to make money, they don’t want to think too much about this kind of stuff,” concluded one of the interviewees.”

*Perspectives on Corporate, Social, and Employee Purpose among Investment Bankers: A Qualitative Research Study

ft.com 31/7/2021 Big investors demand annual vote on companies’ net zero plans:

https://www.ft.com/content/a1ab86dd-edbc-45f8-a4d0-53f7dc3ccc67 — *investors want to vote on hollow zero pledging*

thetimes.co.uk 6/7/2021 Liontrust flop is a warning the ESG blancmange is starting to wobble – by Patrick Hosking
“Investment houses have grown accustomed to one certainty in recent years. Label a fund “sustainable” or “responsible” or give it an “impact investment” badge and, hey presto, the money from end investors floods in. People want to feel they are doing their bit, whether helping to combat planet warming or slave labour. According to the Investment Association, retail purchases of funds it defines as sustainable have been running at about £3 billion a quarter since the pandemic started.”…

theguardian.com 6/2021 Banks pledge to fight climate crisis – but their boards have deep links with fossil fuels – by Emily Holden ,Emily Atkin

economist.com 22/5/2021 A green bubble? We dissect the investment boom Investors of all stripes are getting on board

finance, eco crisis, climate, green investment, ESG, greenwashing, valuation, capitalisation - The Eonomist 5-2022

ecb.europa.eu/press/blog 11/5/2021 A global accord for sustainable finance – by Fabio Panetta

As the Nobel laureate economist William Nordhaus reminds us, climate change is the quintessential global externality. … Three priorities stand out on the international agenda. The first is the need to increase global carbon prices. Putting a higher price on carbon is the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions at the necessary scale and speed. … Currently, carbon prices are far too low … and … only 5% of global greenhouse-gas emissions are priced within the range required … The second priority is to … “build back better.” … The third priority goes to the heart of the financial system and central banking: financing the green transition.

Sustainable-finance products – such as green lending, green and sustainable bonds, and funds with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) characteristics – have grown dramatically in recent years. Unfortunately, the field suffers from information asymmetries and insufficient transparency. … The resulting edifice of inconsistent and incomparable standards, definitions, and metrics has fragmented sustainable-finance markets, reducing their efficiency and limiting the cross-border availability of capital for green investment. As jurisdictions compete to attract finance, the risk of regulatory arbitrage and a race to the bottom has grown. If left unaddressed, this trend could result in lower standards globally, increasing the likelihood of greenwashing.

But we now have an opportunity to start devising a common global approach. A key first step is to agree on minimum standards for corporate disclosures. … To that end, the EU’s approach – including the ongoing revision of the Corporate Sustainability Financial Reporting Directive – represents an advanced benchmark toward which any international standard should aim.

For a common standard to launch a race to the top, it must not fall short of the best international practices. It should cover all ESG aspects of sustainability. And it should require companies to disclose not just issues that influence enterprise value, but also information on the company’s broader environmental and social impact (known as “double materiality”).

A second and even greater challenge is to ensure that countries develop consistent classifications of what counts as sustainable investment. If an activity or asset is considered sustainable in one country but unsustainable in another, there cannot be a truly global sustainable-finance market.

To ensure a global level playing field, today’s leaders should aim for an agreement on common principles for well-functioning and globally coherent taxonomies. Just as governments need to be mindful of the risk of carbon leakage, they must account for the risk of carbon financing leakage.

Finally, we need to ensure that all segments of financial activity remain aligned with broader climate objectives. The enormous energy consumption and associated CO₂ emissions of crypto-asset mining could undermine global sustainability efforts. Bitcoin alone is already consuming more electricity than the Netherlands. Controlling and limiting the environmental impact of crypto assets, including through regulation and taxation, should be part of the global discussion.

Climate change and sustainability are global challenges that require global solutions – and nowhere more so than in the financial sector. The current political environment offers us a rare opportunity to make substantial progress. We must not waste it.”

dbag.co 4-2021 How is the ESG trend changing private equity? – Investors expect commitment

“An anonymous survey, conducted among the investment managers of approx. 50 medium-sized private equity companies by the German industry magazine FINANCE and Deutsche Beteiligungs AG (FINANCE Mid-market Private Equity Monitor), reveals that opinions on this topic vary widely. Even the supposedly easy question as to how important ESG criteria are for limited partners (LPs) when fundraising yields very different answers. On a scale from 1 (unimportant) to 10 (very important), the average answer of surveyed investment managers was 6.7. However, the individual responses varied widely – ranging from 1 to 10. Nevertheless, a median of 7 suggests that most LPs attach great importance to ESG topics…”…

financialpost.com/ft 9/4/2021 Mark Carney’s big stumble at Brookfield intensifies focus on net-zero emissions claims – Controversy over so-called ‘avoided emissions’ highlights creative carbon accounting issues – FT Camilla Hodgson

“… “We really need convergence and more direction on, and parameters around, what is a credible net zero commitment,” said Sagarika Chatterjee, director of climate change at the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment. “Only a subset” of corporate targets are “credible.”…”

newyorker 3/4/2021 The Powerful New Financial Argument for Fossil-Fuel Divestment – A report by BlackRock, the world’s largest investment house, shows that those who have divested have profited not only morally but also financially. By Bill McKibben

theguardian.com 27/3/2021 The University of Michigan divesting from fossil fuels shows that change is here by Bill McKibben – Relentless student pressure and the cold facts of the bottom line forced an institution with close ties to the car industry to reverse course in just six years

wbur.com 2019 More than 200 of the biggest global companies report almost a trillion dollars at risk from climate impacts, and many of those effects are likely to hit within five years. California’s PG&E — one of the nation’s largest utilities — filed for bankruptcy protection after the company faced billions in liabilities for its role in two years of massive Northern California wildfires. The company is the nation’s first victim in what’s being called corporate climate change.

theguardian.co.uk 2019 Why industry is going green on the quiet Cassandra Coburn

The manufacturer in question does not want to tell anyone about its groundbreaking water-conserving techniques – not even the companies it supplies. It is one of many practising “secret sustainability”, whereby innovations are silently enacted and kept from the rest of the industry. This phenomenon is not limited to the clothing industry. The UK organic groceries market has been expanding steadily for the past eight years. The Soil Association estimates that it increased by 5.3% in the past 12 months and is now worth £2.2bn a year. So you would expect any food or drink manufacturer renouncing pesticides and artificial fertilisers in favour of organic production methods to let potential customers know, if not via a PR campaign, then at least on the label or via accreditation. … To flag one area of innovation might attract attention to less sustainable areas, sparking accusations of green-washing …”