Wade into ESG by first collecting the stock or fund symbols for the holdings in your retirement accounts and investment portfolios. Then, recommended Young, run those symbols through the Invest Your Values assessment tool at As You Sow, a nonprofit that provides consumer-friendly snapshots of ESG rankings and data. Read More →
Read MoreNonprofit As You Sow runs several databases geared toward helping everyday investors with an interest in ESG analyze mutual funds and ETFs using Morningstar data. One is Weapon Free Funds, which flags shares of arms makers in funds. Read More →
Read MoreAlways spoiling for new ways to kneecap their formidable foe, ESG investing, a group of congressional Republicans this week widened their attack. The GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed documents from a prolific pro-climate investor advocacy group, As You Sow. The advocacy group posted a long, threatening letter it received on Wednesday from committee chair Jim Jordan. Read More →
Read More"If a fund says it will avoid fossil fuel producers, many investors may not be pleased if those stocks show up in the portfolio," says Andrew Montes, director of digital strategies at As You Sow, a nonprofit shareholder advocacy group that grades ESG funds on their sustainable practices. Read More →
Read More"In terms of accelerating climate change, a key impact of continuing to invest in high-carbon industries [or] greenhouse gas emissions is signaling to markets and governments that it's okay to continue with business as usual," said Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow. Read More →
Read More“Employees are unknowingly lending their money to expand fossil fuel operations,” said Andrew Montes director of digital strategies at As You Sow. While bonds are generally thought of as less risky from an investment returns point of view, the global warming associated with lending to oil and gas businesses increases the risk that retirees will be living a world more impacted by climate change, he said. Read More →
Read MoreAs ESG grew from $2.5 trillion at the decade’s start to $17.1 trillion by 2020, according to the U.S. arm of the GSIA, Danhof watched the Overton window move left. Progressive groups like As You Sow pushed for board diversity as part of ESG, and “it went from activist to mainstream” in half a decade, Danhof says, with the likes of Goldman Sachs and Nasdaq championing it. Read More →
Read More“Climate change, racial justice, diversity, equity and inclusion — these are all financial metrics because your workforce is part of whether your business can succeed or not,” says Andrew Behar, CEO of sustainable investing research firm As You Sow. Read More →
Read MoreEnergy Monitor’s analysis reveals that, across As You Sow’s sample of nearly 3,000 funds, more than two-thirds of the 300-plus sustainable funds (69.7%) are exposed to oil and gas while just over a quarter (26.3%) are exposed to the 30 largest public-company owners of coal-fired power plants in developed markets, plus China and India. Read More →
Read MoreThe SEC has denied a request from the media and telecoms company for the green light to omit the proposal from its 2023 proxy statement. The resolution at issue, which was filed by As You Sow, requests that Comcast’s board ‘publish a report… disclosing how the company is protecting plan beneficiaries with a longer investment time horizon from climate risk in [Comcast’s] default retirement options.’ Read More →
Read More“The Trump rule, it’s extremely convoluted and just confusing,” said Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, a group that seeks to use shareholder power to push action on climate and environmental issues. Democrats on Tuesday blasted the resolution, saying that Republicans were trying to circumvent the free market by putting up barriers to ESG investing. Read More →
Read More“A bunch of [TIAA’s] funds that are called social choice or low carbon or ESG have actually higher rates of fossil fuel investment than their regular annuities,” Levine, a member of TIAA-Divest!’s coordinating committee, said, citing information from Fossil Free Funds. Read More →
Read MoreShareholder activist group As You Sow, based in Berkeley, Calif., operates a free online fund-screening tool. For example, says chief executive Andrew Behar, an investor concerned about global rainforests could check whether a fund owns shares of companies that might source materials from rainforests, such as palm oil, rubber or timber. Read More →
Read MoreAn estimated $32.3 trillion was invested in US retirement plans as of September 2022, with nearly $9 trillion in direct contribution plans such as 401(k)s, according to tracking by the Investment Company Institute. While many retirement plans funnel money into companies that fuel the climate crisis, explains Andrew Behar, chief executive officer of the shareholder activist group As You Sow, “people are just completely ignorant when it comes to what’s actually in their plan.” Read More →
Read MoreAll these issues are related. Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow, explains that most companies put employees who don’t choose specific investments into target-date funds for their retirement plans. (This is why they’re called the “default” option.) Such funds “are fairly high in high-carbon companies such as oil and gas,” Fugere says. In the past, companies have argued that Erisa prohibited them from addressing issues like climate change. A Trump-era rule previously banned consideration of ESG issues in decisions related to default options. Read More →
Read More“The broad message is that this fund is essentially not taking steps to consider climate risk,” says Andrew Montes, director of digital strategies at As You Sow. “So people are, probably without their knowledge, being exposed to significant levels of investment in companies that are both contributing to the climate crisis but also are at significant risk from the climate crisis.” Read More →
Read More“Things have to be verified in a standardized format. Right now, it’s creating distrust between companies and owners,” says Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, the shareholder advocacy nonprofit.
Meanwhile, fund names should accurately reflect their ESG practices. “There is no connection between a prospectus and its holdings,” Behar says. In January, As You Sow published a study of 94 mutual funds and ETFs with the word ESG in their name. Based on the firm’s criteria of what makes a good ESG fund, 60 received a D or an F grade. Read More →
Read More“There’s 100 million people in the United States with $10 trillion in assets that have no idea that they’re investing in their own destruction,” estimates Andrew Behar, chief executive officer of the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow “It’s been completely hidden.” Read More →
Read More“No one is looking at the actual holdings. They’re not looking at the flow of capital. They’re looking at the label,” said Andy Behar, CEO of As You Sow. “If they renamed all their ESG funds … that would probably make the people in Texas and the red states happy.” Read More →
Read MoreAlternatively, investors can also use As You Sow’s website to gauge how well their current investments align with their values. They can type in a fund’s ticker symbol, which generates a fund score according to different value categories. Read More →
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