NPR.

This is the Indicator from Planet Money, I'm Darian Woods.

And I'm Whalen Wong.

Last week in London, climate activist demonstrated outside of Shell's annual shareholders meeting.

Some of them made their way inside the building and tried to run onto the stage.

Shell was also under pressure inside the meeting from shareholders to commit to stronger goals on reducing emissions.

This drama that unfolded at its annual meeting is one of the latest examples of the ongoing conflict over what's known as ESG.

As we've covered, ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance.

And it's gone from being a niche corner of the investing world to a multi-trillion dollar industry and a major battlefront in the culture wars.

But decades before the current so-called anti-woke backlash and before the term ESG even existed, there were a few early thinkers who believed that making investment decisions based on social values could be both good for society and good for the bottom line.

Today in the show, we meet one of the pioneers of what's called socially responsible investing, the late Robert Schwartz.

We look back at the political circumstances that shaped his career and see how he brought his investing principles to the heart of Wall Street.

In September of 1979, a group of musicians organized a series of concerts in New York to protest the use of nuclear energy.

The anti-nuclear movement was well underway worldwide.

David Sand was a fears out of college at that time and working for a nonprofit that was involved in the anti-nuclear movement.

The No Newx concerts were a milestone event, Bruce Springson and the E Street Band performed a set including Badlands.

It was huge. Bruce Springson, Tom Petty, those are the two that I like the most. Lots and lots of performers Jackson Brown and Bonnie Gray.

After the concert, David was given an assignment at work. He was asked to research electric utility companies that were using nuclear energy.

He didn't know very much about the topic, so he started asking around and looking for somebody who could help him.

I heard that there was this guy in Robert Schwartz who worked on Wall Street who I should talk to.

David hadn't heard of this guy, but Robert Schwartz had been in the investment world since the 1950s.

He studied economics and worked at the U.S. Treasury until he was accused of having communist sympathies and had to leave that job.

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