From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.

Welcome to Free Expression with me, Jerry Baker, from the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

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This week, the rising backlash against ESG investing. Well over a decade, giant financial

institutions like BlackRock and Vanguard have been investing a growing portion of their

customers' funds into assets whose returns are measured not simply by financial value, but by the contribution

they supposedly make towards wider gold deemed socially valuable. These include things,

of course, such as environmental sustainability or the promotion of social justice. By 2020,

global assets invested in these ESG funds total over $35 trillion, almost half of that in the

US alone, representing almost a third of total US assets under management. But in the last few years,

there's been growing doubt about the value and the wisdom of ESG investing in the year to last October

of the top 100 ESG funds, all but one recorded negative returns.

Critics are asking, why are investors putting the hard-earned cash saved by employees and others

to work in pursuit of political goals?

Measurement of the performance of these funds has become increasingly opaque,

with many investors claiming to be pursuing ESG goals when they're not.

The SEC recently clamped down on this greenwashing, as as is known, and the amount of cash in ESG funds

has slumped.

And now there's a political reckoning.

Republicans are using their new majority in the House of Representatives to pressure investors

...