Why are investments in ESG funds falling?
Outlet: Marketplace
Part of the ESG retreat is just investors chasing higher returns elsewhere. The other part is politics.
“The fact we no longer use the term ESG on analyst earnings calls, that fund prospectuses are dropping the term ESG, doesn’t mean they’re changing what they’re doing,” said Witold Henisz, vice dean of the ESG Initiative at the Wharton School. “But they’re self-censoring because they don’t want to be called out in a congressional hearing.”
He said the right way to judge ESG investing is how it performs in the long term — even if it’s not called ESG by then.