UK ESG Watch: Who killed the ESG party?

It's time to reflect on the current ESG mega trend all over the world. Actually, the ANTI-ESG movement has already been around in the U.S. (most serious) and the U.K. (and some other western countries to a lesser extent). The popularity of ESG investment dropped significantly in the past two years. Recently, Financial Times launched a short video "Who killed the ESG party?", which raised many people's alert of the issues of greenwashing, freedom of choice and ESG rating, especially in ESG investment. Please view the video:

In a nutshell, people started to question:

• Does ESG enhance return? Not necessarily, while it may only lower the risks. In the past two years, most of the ESG investments lagged behind the sin stock - oil companies - because of the Ukraine war that made the energy price go up.

• Many controversial incidents in the ESG investment sector, e.g. the whistleblower: Desiree Fixler at DWS, Deutsche Bank and the bold comments made by Stuart Kirk at HSBC Asset Management.

• Investment with ESG principles may infringe people's freedom of choice, who has the right to judge one's value system?

• Last but not least, ESG ratings are criticised of lacking objective standards and not able to spot the greenwashing, etc.

The ESG party is over? The ESG party may be over, but ESG is not! It's time for us to reflect, figure out the loopholes of ESG investment and fix them.

Sometimes, doing good, may not be doing well. Do you have the faith and courage to sacrifice the short-term personal benefit for the longer-term common good? Anti-ESG may be a push for a more healthy development of ESG in the future.