Two Indicators: The fight over ESG investing

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2022

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"ESG" investing – Environmental, Social, Governance – has attracted a lot of attention from investors, and from Republican politicians who call it "woke investing." On today's show, what the fight over ESG reveals about the potential and limitations of sustainable investing.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:06.1	For the past five years, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, one of the most influential
0:10.7	people in investing at the world's biggest money manager, has been using his platform
0:15.3	to make the case for this type of investing called ESG.
0:20.0	I could see a world in five years where ESG is meshed in everything we do.
0:27.3	And I believe that's where it's going.
0:29.6	BlackRock, we should say, is a sponsor of NPR.
0:31.9	ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance.
0:36.0	So like, environmental.
0:37.6	Stop polluting.
0:38.6	Stop pillaging the rainforest.
0:40.1	Social.
0:41.1	Pay your workers a fair wage and stop using child labor.
0:44.1	And governance.
0:45.1	Easier management team, diverse and not abusive.
0:48.0	Larry Fink has been saying things like, companies must profit, but they also must have
0:52.5	a social purpose.
0:54.8	Like yeah, we are shareholders, but we are also stakeholders, members of a larger world
0:59.6	that's affected by corporate behavior too.
1:02.2	Accountability should extend beyond just the people and companies who own shares.
1:07.4	Larry's message has been met basically how you might think.
1:10.8	A lot of people love it so much.
	...

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