Advisor Perspectives, February 1, 2021
Burton Malkiel, esteemed author of the classic investing book A Random Walk Down Wall Street is one of the more prominent critics of environmental-, sustainable- and governance-based (ESG) investing. He called ESG investing a “self-defeating” strategy in a recent Wall Street Journal column.
But Malkiel and other detractors who claim ESG is a fad are missing a key element in their arguments, namely that companies are incorporating sustainability into their operations both in response to – and increasingly quite apart from – the ESG investing trend.
People invest in stocks because they want to make money. That’s a basic truth that ESG investing neither needs nor seeks to change. Rather, ESG investing asks, “If you can do good with your money while also achieving attractive returns, why wouldn’t you?”
