by Ben Whedon at Just the News
Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley made waves last December after withdrawing the firm from the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, citing in part the company’s financial duties to its investors.
The NZAM initiative is a coalition of financial firms committed to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing with a mind toward steering capital toward firms working toward the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as outlined in the Paris Climate Accord. The bloc collectively has trillions in assets under management, and the departure of one of the world’s largest asset managers has considerable implications for the soundness of the investing strategy.
Buckley emphasized that his firm maintained a fiduciary responsibility to its investors to deliver returns and that Vanguard’s own analysis of ESG approaches showed that such a strategy could not reliably help it deliver for its investors.
“Our research indicates that ESG investing does not have any advantage over broad-based investing,” he told the Financial Times earlier this month.
Buckley further acknowledged that Vanguard invests in thousands of companies and that it was not in a position to dictate business strategies to those firms, climate-related or otherwise.
“It would be hubris to presume that we know the right strategy for the thousands of companies that Vanguard invests with,” he said. “We just want to make sure that risks are being appropriately disclosed and that every company is playing by the rules.”
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