Avoiding the greenwashers | FT Wealth

The sustainable finance sector saw global investment in ESG funds surpass $35tn in 2020. But as investment has risen, so have concerns about greenwashing, where funds’ ESG credentials are exaggerated. In an industry awash with ESG ratings and rankings, the FT’s Charlotte Middlehurst explores how investors can avoid the greenwashers.
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[@fredrickconte6270]

The wisest thing that should be on every wise individual's list is to invest in different stream of income and don't depend on the government to bring in money especially now the pandemic is hitting the economy

[@henryclinton9317]

you are definitely right , waiting on the government is a big waste

[@fredrickconte6270]

Investments are the stepping Stones to success especially if you been guided by a professional

[@wilsonjudson1650]

Investing is good but investing in the right thing is the actual key to success . who is your pro ?

[@fredrickconte6270]

That was exactly what I did, I trade with a professional stock expert "TERESA JENSEN WHITE " who i met in one of the seminars..

[@fredrickconte6270]

There are so many investment out there but if profits must be considered then not all investments are good to go into.

[@shrimperlincs3395]

Greenwash starts at the very centre of the Low Carbon myopia.
Example:
Low Carbon at all cost leads to deforesting virgin forest for wood pellets to ship across the world on Oil burning ships. Replaced by planting non-native monocrop trees in the wrong places void of biodiversity.
Low Carbon plant based ultra processed meat substitute food uses all the energy concentration of industrial farming. From the Haber-Bosch fertilizers, the GM enabled pesticide drenching and to the high energy extract and fractionation of seeds/grain.

[@acetate909]

Sustainable finance? Yes, because everything is better when it's securitized for profit. Why not hand over the future of our planetary health to the bankers who care so much about the environment. I can't see any issue with this new profit scheme and I'm sure it will work out so well for the people of developing nations.

[@deiniolbythynnwr926]

The bankers! The bonuses!

[@thp8485]

Or we just let green initiatives try to raise their own capital and let financial institutions funnel investments into non-green industries? Seems legit

[@Dave_Sisson]

The real money to be made in this field is by establishing a Green Ratings Agency that can rate both individual companies and investment products. The old credit rating agencys like S & P, Moodys and Fitch have made vast fortunes, even though their less than perfect assessments contributed to the 2008 crash. On a smaller scale there are things like organic food rating companies and halal assesment companies that have virtual monopolies in many countries and they clean up financially too. I'm in no position to establish a green rating agency, so when you do it, just throw me a couple of million when you make your first billion out of my idea. Thanks.

[@jollyyeholiver1578]

🤣🤣🤣 yeah FT isnt engaged in green wash at all, common standards yeah🤣

[@phreak074]

So big money somehow corrupts social change efforts too? great -_-

[@blackamericanlesbianprofes4357]

Thank you for posting.

[@PRAR1966]

FT your on the right money

[@jimcrelm9478]

Voluntary divestment leaves opportunities for other, less ethically motivated investors to profit, by replacing the money just divested. (Although I'm not suggesting it is a zero sum game, so to speak.) In this way, perhaps one long term effect of divesting from unethical investments is to aid in the further concentration of capital into the hands of the unscrupulous and unethical? Those who murder, plunder and destabilise, directly or in this case, indirectly.
I am beginning to wonder whether only way to protect both the social foundation of growth and the ecological ceiling which we must respect (e.g. CO2), is to abolish individual control over whatever means of production are inherently social, and/or over the ends (purposes) of production too, in favour of radical, decentralised direct democracy. Only by adding pervasive democracy to markets and institutions, based on the units of 50-100 adults that we know that humans operate best within, and with a delegate system to bring those units together, can we ever hope for a system that reflects the needs of the whole species and not a diminishing number (Piketty) of pathological individuals.
The market alone is insufficient as a means of distributing power because, from the point of view of the median person, perfect information is not available, network effects predominate, collective action is irrational and difficult to coordinate, and powerful entities are able to change the market (and the market regime) themselves.

[@MayorSom]

You cannot meet/deliver ESG to a cohort of people who are hell bent on growthism. All of these buzzwords mean zilch; nothing more than diet greenwashing