In August 2022, Florida governor Ron DeSantis passed a resolution to ban fund managers from applying environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors when investing for the state’s pension funds. The move underscored a new reality for ESG investing: it is now firmly part of the culture wars.
DeSantis bemoaned ESG investments as using corporate power to “impose an ideological agenda on the American people” and accused Wall Street financial firms of employing ESG to implement policies that Florida voters had rejected at the ballot box.
The DeSantis play might seem like a parochial US political concern and far removed from the sustainable finance landscape in the UK and Europe. But it’s nonetheless significant, according to Dr Daniel Klier, CEO of sustainable data experts ESG Book and former global head of sustainable finance and group head of strategy at HSBC.