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By Sharon Bentley-Hamlyn, Director at Aubrey Capital Management.
As an investment firm that has taken into consideration environmental, social and governance factors for over a decade, with close attention being paid since our founding in 2006 to corporate social responsibility, e.g. good governance, anti-corruption and bribery, and "putting something back" into communities, I am becoming increasingly queasy about the direction of travel of so-called ESG.
In an article back in March, The parlous state of ESG, I lamented that what might have been a framework to encourage more ethical investing had become a bureaucratic nightmare of box ticking, supported by a ratings industry that has helped large investment management companies greenwash their funds.
It looks now as if ESG is becoming something much worse, because it appears to have been hi-jacked by social and environmental 'activists', in addition to the bureaucracy.
Are there any other 'ESG' investors out there feeling similarly disconcerted by this turn of events?
By way of example, our firm strongly supports getting more women and girls to consider investment management as a career, and we have a good gender balance in our company. But there are several well-run businesses in our investment universe that are downgraded in the sustainability ratings because women do not yet comprise one-third of thei...................... To view our full article Click here
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