At this point in the evolution of sustainable investing there is widespread agreement that certain ESG issues are essential to long-term growth and profitability. For example, if it becomes more difficult and costly to meet basic needs due to climate change and a loss of biodiversity, there will be fewer consumers with money to spend
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Over the past couple of years, some well-known food and beverage companies and several large agriculture and food producers, have been sued in “greenwashing lawsuits”. In these legal actions, a company is accused of making false statements about its ESG practices, in an attempt to appeal to consumers who care about sustainable practices. The specifics
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When Tesla was dropped from S&P’s well-known ESG index, the move prompted more than just a few disparaging comments from Tesla CEO Elon Musk; it generated much discussion about the good, bad, and sometimes ugly state of ESG progress in different industries. ServiceNow (as discussed in this column in Forbes) sheds light on this issue
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There has been a great deal in the news lately about greenwashing, proposed SEC regulations to combat it, and politically-motivated actions by some U.S. states to target so-called “woke capitalism” (on that last one, we believe those actions, and that phrase, reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of sustainable investing, but that’s another story). It’s hard to
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Cybersecurity and ESG may not seem all that related, but if you take a minute or two to keep reading, we think you’ll see the connection, across all three pillar of E, S, and G. Before we get started, we note that this is just one example of how ESG research and analytics can help
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Embedding environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles into the investment process continues to attract all types of investors for many reasons. Institutional investors correctly recognize there are business risks associated with ignoring ESG. There are a long list of such risks that could hit the bottom line, some sooner, some later, and many have the
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Recently, we have seen a number of articles and news items about a push-back against ESG or “stakeholder capitalism” (or “woke capitalism” in some circles). One could argue that the asset management industry itself is largely to blame—as interest in sustainable investing grew, more and more asset managers wanted to grab a piece of the
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Here’s an update from the latest on ESG investing that falls under the category of “you probably heard about it, but just in case you missed it… ” The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed new rules that would require disclosures about investment strategies (mutual funds, ETFs, or other products) that claim to have
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We have come across more than a few articles recently on how a company’s board of directors handles ESG oversight. To be kind, we’ll summarize by saying it’s a work in process. In all fairness, we acknowledge that people who typically serve on boards of large corporations rarely have much of a background in sustainability
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Sometimes, a particular phrase starts to pop up here and there, then more people use it and soon we’re all repeating it, even if we’re not really sure we understand what it means. Such phrases are often stated with at least some degree of gravitas, to signify that the underlying issue is worthy of some
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In case you missed it, Tesla was recently dropped from S&P Global Inc.’s flagship ESG index, and Elon Musk, Tesla’s founder and chief executive, immediately and harshly criticized the decision. We write about this here not to argue for or against S&P’s action, but because we think it highlights some important issues about ESG scores
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Discussions about ESG issues often focus mostly on the “E” (environmental), with far less attention paid to the Social “S” and Governance “G” pillars. This may be partly, or even mostly due to the fact that it is relatively easy to define and measure things that fall under the Environmental pillar, such as a company’s
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