Fury over ESG as a category is pointless. At this point, every single ESG fund is so different that it’s hardly fair to say they are comparable. The only thin

Fury over ESG as a category is pointless. At this point, every single ESG fund is so different that it’s hardly fair to say they are comparable. The only thing comparable across all ESG funds is that their expense ratios are astronomical. If you are in favor of the general concept (I am), you’ll be disappointed to discover that data is sparse and unreliable. This factor alone is a major bottleneck for making good ESG funds. And so the current landscape is a mix of things; some funds are barely more than populist opinion lists. But to be completely honest, quality is not really the point! The mutual fund and ETF industry has just gone through 2 decades of Vanguard, Blackrock and other engaging in a fee price war. Index funds have extremely low fees! And so now we have these ESG funds that are super popular AND investors don’t care about the price!!! Of course they are pushing them! Of course everyone is creating new one! Seriously, go look at the fee difference between Vanguard’s total market funds and their ESG funds. You’re going to fall out of your chair! The only ESG index I know of that is really trying for quality, objectivity, and rigor is the CRSP ESG series. But hey, you can’t invest in it - it’s an academic exercise only (CRSP is part of UChicago). One of the cool things is that each series has twins: an index of companies that meet the criteria and an index of companies that don’t. So you can compare performance.