A new study shows ESG to be what it really is. Good.

I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

ACADEMICS QUESTION ESG STUDIES
THAT HELPED FUEL INVESTING BOOM

As Wall Street’s passion for sustainability began surging about five years ago, Andy King looked on with apprehension. Academics at Harvard University, the London Business School and other institutions were churning out research asserting that doing good for people and the planet was also good for company profits.

King, a professor of business strategy at Boston University, questioned the studies’ conclusions. In decades of analyzing whether companies could profitably reduce their harm to the environment, King had found the financial gains were often too small to affect the bottom line. Digging into the latest research, scrutinizing complex mathematical formulas and parsing tens of thousands of data points, he discovered what he says are flaws that skewed the results. “The evidence supporting ESG just wasn’t solid,” King says. [Emphasis added.]

You mean it was all just a feel-good investment con that enabled Wall Street banks to generate mountains of fees? Holy cow, that’s sure never happened before.