Does ESG investing actually make a difference?

That’s the crux of the debate making the rounds this week, after Tariq Fancy—the former chief investment officer for sustainable investing at BlackRock—more or less went nuclear, declaring the whole industry not just fuzzy and vague, but actively destructive.

If you’ve got some time on your hands, you could read Fancy’s 3-part “The Secret Diary of a ‘Sustainable Investor'” essay on Medium. In addition to its searing words about ESG, it’s threaded with basketball analogies and loads of tangential gossipy details, from BlackRock execs trying to learn to play bridge to impress Larry Fink, to former J&J CEO Alex Gorsky allegedly comparing himself to Thomas Jefferson during the drafting of the 2019 Business Roundtable agreement.

If you don’t have the time, the Financial Times had a zingy pre-screed interview with him, in which he laid out several of his essential arguments, and coined the likely-to-stick term “sustain-a-babble.”

Would he recommend his friends start investing in ESG? Absolutely not, he says.

“There’s no compelling reason to believe you’ll outperform non-ESG strategies. Nor will you have any real-world environmental or social impact,” he says. “All you’re doing is rewarding money managers through higher fees. Worse, in the aggregate, you are going to help contribute to a giant societal placebo and it is going to slow government action.”

In another line, he compares it to giving “wheatgrass to a cancer patient.” (In the essay, he claims it’s even worse: delaying chemo for the wheatgrass.)

Fancy’s framed the ESG critiques more vividly than many others, and he’s also doing so from his (former) vantage point in high finance. When BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, his former employer, declared the company would put climate change at the heart of its investing policy, it was seen as a game-changing moment for the industry.

But the serious questions he’s referring to are fairly well explored by academics and policymakers. One he hits on is the persistent, convenient claim that there are no trade offs between transitioning a business or country to a low-carbon economy, and making money. Another is the question of how much pressure should be put on personal choices (don’t fly, become a vegan, invest in ESG), versus what many of America’s largest companies have said themselves would be the most transformational shift: the introduction, by governments, of a very hefty carbon tax.

A third is the question of divestment, which he argues—at least from an equity standpoint—simply isn’t effective. As one expert I spoke to recently put it: do you want your portfolio to transition to net-zero, or do you actually want the world to transition? Divestment can get you to the first, but many ESG experts (if not all) argue that it cannot make meaningful difference on the second.

Fancy has plenty more to say on the subject. Have a read, and tell me what you think.

Katherine Dunn
[email protected]
@katherine_dunn

CARBON COPY

Methane hunters 

The "methane hunters", who use infrared cameras to track errant plumes of the gas have turned their sights on Europe. While the bloc isn't home to the kinds of leakages found in Kazakhstan, for example, plumes are escaping on its eastern edge, in Romania. “It felt like every well in Romania is leaking,” says James Turitto, who tracks the leaks. Methane hasn't been included in EU emissions reductions targets, even though it is highly potent. Bloomberg

On the move

This beautiful photo reportage shows the daily lives of a group of nomadic reindeer herders who live in Mongolia and Russia, and how they're being shaped by a changing climate (and politics.) The reindeer must move to find lichen, which is vulnerable to changing temperatures. The stakes for moving camp are high. “If we are wrong, we put the whole herd in danger,” says one herder. New York Times

'Carbon neutral' burgers

Can a burger—even a vegan burger—really be carbon neutral? That's the debate behind a series of burgers at British chain Leon. The chain has turned to offsets to make their claims, including offsets that protect  areas of the Amazon, rather than actively plant more trees. The program behind those offsets has come under scrutiny before. The Guardian

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

A holy war erupts over access to Italy’s sacred beaches by Luiz Romero

If a tree (doesn’t) fall in the forest, can a company really offset its emissions?By Katherine Dunn

Bitcoin mining comes to Pennsylvania coal country—and raises tough questions by Shawn Tully 

Extreme weather threats aren’t a factor for today’s homebuyer by Chris Morris

CLOSING NUMBER

7 billion tons 

The amount of rain that fell across Greenland between August 14 and 16. That was the highest level since records began in 1950, and was a worrying sign: rain falling on ice sheets means higher temperatures. The result was a loss of ice surface mass. Scientists estimate that the melting of Greenland's ice sheets is responsible fro 25% of rising sea levels over the last several decades.