No one is saying 'let's just fight climate change as investors so governments don't have to.' No one is saying 'I can't be distracted by politics because I'm too busy with my sustainable investing.' Both in their role as investors and as individual citizens, they can and do support public policy solutions. Second, sustainable investors can walk and chew gum at the same time. Rather than vainly try to direct the flow of money to the right causes, it is simpler and far more effective to tax or regulate the things we as a society agree are bad and subsidise the things we think are good.' Seriously? Three Argumentsįirst off, in the US anyway, navigating our broken dysfunctional political system is hardly a 'simpler' path to take for effecting change. 'My big concern about ESG investing is that it distracts everyone from the work that really needs to be done. They can be enormously influential.Īnd what about people-as-citizens? In perhaps the most disingenuous claim made by the article’s author James Mackintosh, he says: At a time when governments are hamstrung by a variety of limitations in addressing problems like climate change and growing inequality, sustainable corporations can step up to play a greater role. Sustainable investing is part of a longer-term shift in the way people approach their investments, and it is helping bring about a systemic shift toward stakeholder capitalism. Crypto is a craze SPACs are a craze day-trading meme stocks during the pandemic is a craze. Sustainable investing is hardly a 'craze' then, as the WSJ put it. Flows into sustainable funds in the United States and Europe continued to set records in 2021. What about people-as-investors? When Morgan Stanley asked individual investors about their interest in sustainable investing in late 2020, 79% said they were interested and, among an oversampled group of millennials (and this is not a typo) 99% said they were interested. So people-as-workers and people-as-consumers want to hold business to a higher standard. Nearly three quarters of consumers said in the survey they believe 'ethical corporate practices are an important reason to choose a brand.” Two thirds said they 'plan to make more sustainable or ethical purchases in the next six months.' When making consumer purchases, people now more often consider the sustainability of the product and ethics of the company making it. Nearly two thirds of employees in a survey conducted for the Accenture report said businesses should be responsible for leaving their people 'net better off' through work. People want to work for sustainable companies that treat them well and have a positive purpose. 'Everyone is holding business to a higher standard,' begins a recent Accenture report, Shaping the Sustainable Organization, on how corporations can 'create lasting value and equitable impact for all stakeholders.'

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