Author: Christopher K. Merker, Ph.D., CFA

2022 is wrapping up on many levels as the most challenging year financially since the Global Financial Crisis, geo-politically since 9/11, and politically since the McCarthy years, when the country was divided over fears of a fifth-column, communist invasion.

One casualty in this bubbling cauldron of uncertainty has been what has become known in the past few years as ESG investing. 2022 marked the first year of negative outflows in over a decade with investors pulling $13.2 billion out of ESG funds through November 2022, according to Lipper. Even when considering the broader universe of fund outflows this year, ESG outperformed and not in a good way.

(https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/esg-funds-set-first-annual-outflows-decade-after-bruising-year-2022-12-19/)

The secular headwinds are obvious at this stage: in Europe the Ukraine War and the implosion of its energy market. In the U.S., rampant inflation. In the emerging markets, the insidious and growing activism of authoritarian regimes on the world stage, namely China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Certain factions in the United States have seized on this backdrop of uncertainty and placed a portion of the blame on the ESG movement, characterizing it as woke, damaging to the middle class and harmful to the economy.

Exhibit A: Blackrock has seen over $2 trillion in assets flow out, particularly from a wave of public pensions that have fallen under state legislation banning ESG investments.

Exhibit B: Vanguard announced recently its intention to back away from the NetZero Alliance to address “confusion” over its ESG positions as a leading indexer.

While a political backlash in the U.S. seems to be the norm these days on just about any issue, this has marked a sea-change in the ESG movement, just as the SEC pursues stronger mandates to enforce greenwashing claims.

This has no doubt made for a tougher business environment for ESG investing.

All that being said, beneath the subterfuge is real underlying progress developing, and it is happening in the places that matter most: companies. A confluence of rationalization happening at the ESG standards level, in the form of the International Sustainability Standards Board, combined with pending rules on SEC climate-related financial disclosure has lit a fire, and companies are not backing away.

Data science is leading the way, and companies that are measuring are finding that they can also manage. Capital markets will remain part of the equation, providing some additional carrots and sticks, but the real traction will only happen with companies that find ways to innovate ourselves into a new carbon pathway, as one example.

This is also I think bringing some new life to the whole rationale where I think ESG as an investing experience has found itself marooned. For too long investment managers have fallen back on this idea that ESG is a risk management exercise. This may be true, and certainly can be argued, but it only carries us so far. People wanting to do the right thing and have a passion for doing the right thing, is where the whole idea of good corporate citizenship started. ESG investing has failed with investors who thought this concept could be simply rationalized and outsourced. As we are finding out, doing sustainability is a roll up the sleeves activity that is best placed when as an integral part of doing business.