Bloomberg (March 20)
Paul Clements-Hunt coined the acronym. ESG. He now thinks “the ESG fund industry is headed for a ‘shakeout’ over the next five years.” In successfully attracting trillions of dollars to these investments, “the finance sector has ‘sprinkled ESG fairy dust’ on products that do little to account for environmental, social and governance risks.” These and other shenanigans will increasingly come into “jeopardy.”
Tags: Clements-Hunt, ESG, Fairy dust, Finance sector, Fund industry, Investments, Jeopardy, Risks, Shakeout, Shenanigans
Bloomberg (March 1)
“First BP, then Shell. In just two days, Britain’s twin energy giants have dumped Russian investments nurtured over decades and shut themselves out of the world’s largest energy exporter, probably forever.” The moves will “put pressure on remaining foreign investors, including Exxon Mobil Corp. and France’s TotalEnergies SE, to follow suit as Russia’s war in Ukraine forces a dramatic rupture with the global economy.”
Tags: BP, Energy giants, Exporter, Exxon Mobil, Investments, Investors, Nurtured, Pressure, Russia, Shell, TotalEnergies, UK, Ukraine, War
Wall Street Journal (January 24)
“The financial industry has spotted an opportunity to make money by helping people feel good about themselves. Despite claims to the contrary, these investments don’t do much to make the world a better place…. The explosion of ESG investing… is mostly—but not completely—a waste of time.”
Tags: Better place, Claims, ESG investing, Feel good, Financial industry, Investments, Money, Opportunity, Waste, World
Wall Street Journal (June 4)
“Investors have piled into new carbon-credit-trading funds, helping make the upstart market one of the best-performing commodities-related investments of the past year.” In Europe, the trading price for carbon credits “has jumped 135% over the past 12 months and recently hit a series of records as economic activity rebounded from pandemic lockdowns. Only lumber, driven higher by the housing boom, has proved a better commodities investment.”
Tags: Best-performing, Carbon credits, Commodities, Europe, Funds, Housing boom, Investments, Investors, Lockdowns, Lumber, Market, Pandemic, Rebounded, Records, Trading, Upstart
Supply Chain Management Review (April 27)
“Global manufacturing and supply chains were severely disrupted by the COVID-19 global pandemic, forcing companies to adapt and plan for a new business reality.” This year, however, the industry “is already quickly rebounding with investments in digital transformation aimed at improving speed, resilience and sustainability. While areas of concern persist, most report that lessons from the pandemic have paved the way for new innovations.”
Tags: Adapt, COVID-19, Disrupted, DX, Investments, Manufacturing, Pandemic, Rebounding, Resilience, Speed, Supply chains, Sustainability
Institutional Investor (August 25)
“ESG investments have proven effective at reducing risk and delivering returns comparable to those of non-ESG oriented funds. During the stock market collapse in the first quarter of 2020, Morningstar found that all but two out of 26 ESG indexes suffered fewer losses than their conventional counterparts. Studies from Morgan Stanley and MSCI have found no financial trade-off in the returns delivered by ESG funds relative to traditional funds.”
Tags: Collapse, Effective, ESG, Funds, Investments, Losses, Morningstar, MSCI, Reducing risk, Returns, Stock market, Trade-off
LA Times (December 19)
In its first climate risk assessment, CalPERS, the largest U.S. pension fund, “found that one-fifth of the fund’s public market investments were in sectors that have high exposure to climate change. Those include energy, materials and buildings, transportation, and agriculture, food and forestry.” The report by CalPERS, however, didn’t go into much detail because “less than half of the 10,000-plus companies in their portfolio voluntarily disclose information about their carbon emissions.”
Tags: Agriculture, Assessment, CalPERs, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Energy, Exposure, Forestry, Investments, Materials, Pension fund, Portfolio, Risk, Transportation, U.S., Voluntary disclosure
Newsweek (October 23)
Ken Fisher, the CEO and founder of Fisher Investments, “has lost more than a billion dollars in client investments following remarks that have been widely denounced as sexist and offensive.” Fortunately, investors called him out. “As long as there are still men who think it’s OK to speak in these ways, industries will continue to send the message that business is a ‘man’s world.’ It’s time to end this — and to bury workplace sexism once and for all.”
The Economist (October 6)
“Europe has caught China’s eye. Chinese investments there have soared, to nearly €36bn ($40bn) in 2016—almost double the previous years’ total…. For the most part, this money is welcome….. However, China is also using its financial muscle to buy political influence…. It is only prudent for Europeans to be nervous.”
Tags: China, Europe, Financial muscle, Investments, Nervous, Political influence, Prudent
Industry Week (December 4)
“Investments in electric cars may soon begin to do to the transportation sector what wind and solar have done to the power sector: turn the pollution curve upside down. The price of battery packs has been plummeting by about 8 percent a year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and electric cars are now projected to become cheaper, more reliable, and more convenient than their gasoline-powered equivalents around the world by the mid-2020s.”
