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ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions

economist.com

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Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions

#61

Post by smsm42 »

washbrain wrote: post #35
sjaak wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shell: AA https://www.msci.com/our-solutions/esg-investing/esg-ratings... Higher than TSLA

TSLA also has a lot of labor related discussions open about workplace safety and racism. (I'm not weighing in on their validity, but it's absolutely truthful the allegations and lawsuits are there.)

You see how bizarre it gets. If you discuss workplace safety and racism (even without any proof of any wrongdoing, just talking about how to treat people better - and I'm sure there are always ways to treat people better), you get a ding on the score. If you suppress any discussion on the matter, you score is perfect.

There's absolutely no evidence Tesla is more racist or unsafe place to work than Shell. If anything, Shell should be, in theory, more risky, safety-wise - they are much bigger, so more opportunity to screw up, and they do some things that are inherently risky, like mining and extraction. But I have a serious suspicion that the score has much less to do with safety statistics than with politics and donating to certain people and NGOs, somehow.

Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions

#62

Post by evmar »

axblount wrote: post #7

I think Tariq Fancy does a good job of breaking down why ESG and sustainable investing as a whole is bunk: https://medium.com/@sosofancy/the-secret-diary-of-a-sustaina... He also summarizes his thoughts on Doug Henwood's podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaG91dC5sYm8tdGF...

The Economist podcast had an episode on ESG (likely related to the article) and they had Tariq Fancy come on that podcast:

https://www.economist.com/esg-pod

Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions

#63

Post by Quenty »

mullingitover wrote: post #56

ESG exists because there's a market for that form of equity. That market is willing to buy equity that might even underperform the rest of the market, because it explicitly does perform in the metric these buyers care about. There are already options if you strictly are focused on emissions, so I don't think this article is meaningful. The Economist is right-leaning and would certainly love to distract ESG equity buy…

Not to comment on the rest of the comment, but apparently the Economist is not right leaning? Do you have a source for that? https://www.allsides.com/news-source/economist

Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions

#64

Post by sigma_ligma »

baobob wrote: post #29
gnarbarian wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also Tesla is only average for the automotive industry which is mind-boggling.

> To manufacture each EV battery, you must process > 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium > 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt > 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, 25,000 pounds of ore for copper > Digging up 500,000 pounds of the earth's crust > For just - one - battery. https://twitter.com/brianroemmele/status/1503176565974216710 Would appreciate a fact check if this is anyone's business here

This is basically just an appeal to big numbers. "500,000 pounds? That's a lot! ICE cars must certainly be less polluting. I mean, just look at the numbers: you have to dig up FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS of Earth's crust! FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND! That's HALF A MILLION!"

Proper comparisons look at both sides.

Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions

#65

Post by hunterb123 »

greeneggs wrote: post #12
gnarbarian wrote: post #9

ESG is a political compliance score. Fall out of favor with certain groups and your score will plummet, publicly tout an agenda around diversity and sustainability and your score will rise. The fact that Exxon (edit: oops I mean shell) has a higher ESG score than Tesla should be all you need to know.

MSCI ESG ratings: Tesla: A https://www.msci.com/our-solutions/esg-investing/esg-ratings... Exxon: BBB https://www.msci.com/our-solutions/esg-investing/esg-ratings...

Come on now, don't cherry pick, tack on a few more for context:

Shell: A++

https://www.msci.com/our-solutions/esg-investing/esg-ratings...

BP: A

https://www.msci.com/our-solutions/esg-investing/esg-ratings...

Marathon Oil: A

Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions

#66

Post by livueta »

cardanome wrote: post #39
gnarbarian wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also Tesla is only average for the automotive industry which is mind-boggling.

A electric cars are mostly a luxury item for rich people to feel better. Not sure why you think Tesla should have a good rating. They are harmful in that they are actively distracting from the proper solution: that people shouldn't have private cars. The environmental cost to produce car, the space they take up in the cities, in the end private car ownership can not be made sustainable even if they run on electric. T…

Whenever I see an argument like this I'm confused by how hand-wavey "just achieve societal change" is. Like, sure, there's various issues with various technological approaches, but it's not as if the kind of broad social change that'd see private cars outlawed develops overnight.

If anything, the last couple of decades demonstrate pretty convincingly and depressingly that putting together real momentum (read: won referendums on things like carbon taxes, _not_ push polls) is capital-H Hard. It's absolutely true that various bad actors play a factor in that level of difficulty, but they're not going to shut up and go away if we clap our hands and wish really hard either. Consider [1]: this is in a constituency electorally dominated by one of the most avowedly socially-liberal cities in the US and year after year it goes down by similar margins, and that's incredibly anodyne compared to straight-up getting rid of private cars.

Conversely, supply-side energy mix changes have, over the same timeframe, made drastic improvements in emissions-per-capita without requiring much/any self-sacrifice. Martyrdom doesn't really scale in the same way.

So: what's your plan for gaining the power required to implement your scenario, taking into account the apparent ineffectiveness of decades of messaging? "just ban the cars" would be sensical if you were emperor for a day, but failing any miracles it seems to me that the real distraction is this sort of utopianism.

---

[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Initiative_1631,_Carbon_E...

Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions

#67

Post by ZeroGravitas »

sjaak wrote: post #19
greeneggs wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MSCI ESG ratings: Tesla: A https://www.msci.com/our-solutions/esg-investing/esg-ratings... Exxon: BBB https://www.msci.com/our-solutions/esg-investing/esg-ratings...

Shell: AA https://www.msci.com/our-solutions/esg-investing/esg-ratings... Higher than TSLA

Shell have committed to being net zero by 2050, including the products they sell and have some kind of a plan in place to make it happen.

There's bits of their plan that seem dubious to me, like mentions of carbon capture but overall, since I believe that the problem of climate change wasn't "oh no, we can't do this, because it's impossible" but rather "we're not going to do this", that commitment and plan is all I'm really looking for.

It would be like the USA implementing a carbon tax. Is it instantly going to solve all the problems tomorrow? Will it magically fix all the previous carbon they've emitted. No, but it would be a really smart thing to do and just based on their size, would have a massive impact over time accelerating the transition.

Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions

#68

Post by birdmanjeremy »

second_planet wrote: post #33
Maximus9000 wrote: post #26

I agree. Is there an emissions only ETF that I can buy into? (Not sure if this is mentioned in the article, it's paywalled for me)

Plenty! Carbon collective takes a great approach https://www.carboncollective.co/portfolios

I switched to Carbon Collective recently. Very happy with their approach and their transparency. A lot of ESGs are greenwashed, so it's nice putting my money somewhere I can actually feel OK about.

Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions

#69

Post by PaywallBuster »

function_seven wrote: post #31

I sometimes toy with the idea of investing only in vice companies. Creating my own personal index and allocating across it. Sectors I'd include: Oil, gas, coal, tobacco, pharmaceuticals (but only makers of opiates), payday loans, gambling, etc. It's a bit sociopathic, sure. But if enough people sleep on these tickers, I might as well get 'em cheap and earn those dividends.

Might consider too, but at a first view, looks like subpar performance (and Casino stocks might go down further due to recession)

https://www.etf.com/VICE

ESG Orphans https://etfdb.com/etf/ORFN/

Re: ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions

#70

Post by washbrain »

Aarostotle wrote: post #40
washbrain wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSLA also has a lot of labor related discussions open about workplace safety and racism. (I'm not weighing in on their validity, but it's absolutely truthful the allegations and lawsuits are there.)

> it's absolutely truthful the allegations and lawsuits are there. I want to make sure I understand you. You don't know if people's accusations are true, but you do know that they are making accusations. Is that correct?

Yeah. I'm not in a position to judge the veracity of the allegations, but the allegations are definitely there.
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