Source: Zerohedge.com
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) has been a hotly debated topic over the last few years.
The seemingly unquestioned march towards corporate utopia has met with resistance among those who oppose the idea that government oligarchs should dictate the affairs of private business firms. The long-term effects of the ESG movement are largely ignored by the mainstream.
As Tom Czitron previously commented, ESG is largely justified on the basis that corporations and financial institutions should be socially responsible. They should work obsessively to address the perceived menaces of climate change, racism, sexism, and a host of subjects. Our benevolent political and economic elite define what is virtuous and what is not for a grateful public.
But, as of late, there are some naysayers that dare to stand up to the socialism-by-stealth promoters with Tim Buckley, chief executive at Vanguard, perhaps the biggest name yet to buck the ESG orthodoxy.
“Our research indicates that ESG investing does not have any advantage over broad-based investing,” Mr. Buckley said in a recent interview with the Financial Times.
Matching word to deed, his comments came after he had withdrawn his firm from the $59 trillion Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, an organization that is part of the $150 trillion United Nations-affiliated Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.
“We don’t believe that we should dictate company strategy,” he said, in his first public comments about the decision.
“It would be hubris to presume that we know the right strategy for the thousands of companies that Vanguard invests with. We just want to make sure that risks are being appropriately disclosed and that every company is playing by the rules.”
As The Wall Street Journal reports, Mr. Buckley effectively claims that ESG managers are playing the fool and taking their clients’ money with them….