Insider Exposé of ESG Greenwashing

 

Remember the Y2K bullshit? (If you are above 40 years old).
Before that there was the ISO 9000 crap. 
Then came the CSR crap also. 
Now the latest bull is 'ESG'.  

Here is an article (short and readable) by Jomo Kwame Sundram about some whistleblower who has blown the whistle on the ESG crap. Its all just a bunch of bullshit. Someone makes money out of all this.

This is a truncated version.  You can read the full article here. This one is not blocked by the MCMC.

Insider Exposé of ESG Greenwashing

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Insider Exposé of ESG Greenwashing

A senior manager of the world’s largest investment firm has ‘blown the whistle’ on ESG (environment, social and governance) ‘greenwashing’, especially on supposed climate finance.

1 Feb 2024

Sometimes, companies had already planned to make certain investments using conventional financing. With ready access to such finance, they would not have issued green bonds if not for the pecuniary advantages of doing so.

In such circumstances, green bonds have the same results as conventional finance if not for the incentives to claim otherwise. Hence, green bonds cannot claim credit for green investments and transitions if they would have happened anyway by other means.

This raises larger questions about the supposedly transformative impact of green bonds. Companies may even obscure environmentally unsustainable or even harmful practices by bundling them together with ostensibly ‘green’ investments.

But there is no strong evidence that ESG-inspired stock market or corporate strategies have improved the environment, society or governance. After all, shareholders and companies prioritize short-term financial goals over longer-term considerations, including ESG and long-term profitability.

And while some share prices may be more sensitive to adverse ESG publicity in some societies, there is no strong evidence this is true everywhere. Nor is there any strong evidence that systematic ESG reporting has generated desirable outcomes in most societies.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.