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For those interested, a podcast episode from 2021 > The Smoke and Mirrors of ESG Investing with Tariq Fancy https://capitalisnt.com/episodes/the-smoke-and-mir

For those interested, a podcast episode from 2021 > The Smoke and Mirrors of ESG Investing with Tariq Fancy https://capitalisnt.com/episodes/the-smoke-and-mirrors-of-esg-investing-with-tariq-fancy-hqC704vU https://capitalisnt.com/episodes/the-smoke-and-mirrors-of-es... > Environmental, social and governance investing, also know as ESG, has exploded in recent years. It promises to help us solve problems like climate change and inequality all while allowing investors to still turn a profit. > But BlackRock’s former global chief investment office for sustainable investing, Tariq Fancy, says it isn't what's being advertised. Recently, he penned a blog post claiming that not only are ESGs not making societal problems better, they may actively be making them worse.

gs17 3y ago
https://medium.com/@sosofancy/the-secret-diary-of-a-sustainable-investor-part-1-70b6987fa139 https://medium.com/@sosofancy/the-secret-diary-of-a-sustaina... seems to be the blog post they're talking about.
ahzhou 3y ago
I’ve never understood ESG funds. 1) It’s hard to reliably turn ESG goals into fair (non-gameable) portfolio metrics to incentivize funds 2) LPs still want funds to make returns, so even if they define good metrics, they still want most of the incentive to be based on returns. 3) ESG companies don’t post better returns than those from other asset classes. It makes more sense for LPs put their money into non-ESG funds and just set aside some amount to achieve ESG goals through a charity with established metrics. They’ll get a tax break to boot.
- jrochkind1 3y ago
  i think your thinking is not too dissimilar to Tariq Fancy's. The additional twist, of course, is that if you pretend you're doing ESG, you might attract investors to your fund that otherwise would have gone to another fund... while actually supporting the ESG goals a lot _less_ than if you just donated money to them as you suggest, while also conveying the idea that profit-oriented investing can motivate corporate behavior toward ESG goals instead of requiring government policy, which is yet another win if you actually don't want to sacrifice any profit for ESG goals and don't want any government regulation, so.... "everyone" wins?

gs17 3y ago

https://medium.com/@sosofancy/the-secret-diary-of-a-sustainable-investor-part-1-70b6987fa139 https://medium.com/@sosofancy/the-secret-diary-of-a-sustaina... seems to be the blog post they're talking about.

ahzhou 3y ago

I’ve never understood ESG funds. 1) It’s hard to reliably turn ESG goals into fair (non-gameable) portfolio metrics to incentivize funds 2) LPs still want funds to make returns, so even if they define good metrics, they still want most of the incentive to be based on returns. 3) ESG companies don’t post better returns than those from other asset classes. It makes more sense for LPs put their money into non-ESG funds and just set aside some amount to achieve ESG goals through a charity with established metrics. They’ll get a tax break to boot.

jrochkind1 3y ago
i think your thinking is not too dissimilar to Tariq Fancy's. The additional twist, of course, is that if you pretend you're doing ESG, you might attract investors to your fund that otherwise would have gone to another fund... while actually supporting the ESG goals a lot _less_ than if you just donated money to them as you suggest, while also conveying the idea that profit-oriented investing can motivate corporate behavior toward ESG goals instead of requiring government policy, which is yet another win if you actually don't want to sacrifice any profit for ESG goals and don't want any government regulation, so.... "everyone" wins?