New rules designed to ensure investors do not end up buying a green investment fund that is anything but eco-friendly are nothing but a joke.
That is the considered – and somewhat controversial – view of some leading investment experts who have long believed that the investment fund management industry (in the UK and the United States) has hijacked the green agenda for its own purposes.
That is, to generate premium fees from the sale of funds which it knows the public will almost buy blind because they are labelled ‘green,’ ‘socially responsible’, ‘ESG-friendly,’ ‘sustainable’, ‘ethical’ or ‘impact investing’. The term ESG stands for environmental, social and governance investing.
Sinister: Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker in the 2019 film and an ESG superhero
Often, but not always, these badged funds – ‘superhero’ funds in many investors’ eyes – are full of stocks such as global mining giants, gambling businesses, oil and gas producers and tobacco companies that most green investors would otherwise run a mile from. Mislabelling of such investments is often referred to as ‘greenwashing’. A more apt word is ‘deceit’.
Tariq Fancy, the former global chief investment officer for sustainable investing at mega asset manager BlackRock, believes the green investment industry is underpinned by deceit. Last year, he said the industry was ‘selling the public a wheatgrass placebo as a solution to the onset of cancer’.
Sceptics argue that the changes proposed by the…
