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Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

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161–170 of 187 posts

Re: Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

#161
People keep making tiny or zero progress. Then holding parties and acting like the problem is solved. Then getting shocked when it isn't.

ESG is nice, but it doesn't cure everything, at best it helps empower some people trying to do good. You should not expect it to "work" on a large, statistically significant scale. It was never going to.

The Paris accord is another example: it was an agreement to all just do our own thing and only what we want. So obviously nothing has been achieved.

People really struggle with the idea that something small is not everything...

Re: Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

#163

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These type of statements are considered "anti-trans": > people with obvious mental problems akin to anorexia > allow people to invade opposite gender areas such as toilets or sport or any number of other arenas of life > when people ignore reality At least, that's what I've been told when I express similar concerns.

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Re: Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

#164

Not really news is it? From two years ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/blog/bp-esg-outlook-s... > BP’s ESG performance and outlook are bolstered by an ambitious net-zero emissions target from its operated upstream production by 2050, complemented by a tenfold surge in green spending, 50 gigawatts of renewable-power generation by 2030 and a 40% decline in oil and gas volume. Ecological metrics are favorable…

> investor-friendly governance structure

This point is actually reasonable - a poorly governed company is a risk. Like if a single, unreadonable owner is prone to throwing hissy fits, ridking money in poorly thoigh out schemes and firing people because he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Then thats a riskier investment.

Re: Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

#165

The whole ESG discussion is fraught with misinformation. Different ESG scores mean different things depending on what scoring you’re looking at. So, for example, an environmentally focused organization may rate a company high in ESG because they have low emissions and/or push for green legislation. However, the more well known ESG scores that we see in the news are often from the financial press and are intended for…

> > The political backlash against ESG scores is so misplaced. Rating agencies should rate the financial risk of stuff (mostly bonds they should try and do it well given that whole mess they created in 08) They should not be involved in politics. When a rating agency goes beyond number crunching and they start looking at other stuff they are already out of their role. When they start looking at the number of women on…

> They should not be involved in politics.

"Should we bail out the banks" was politics. BP has a massive oil spill, how much will they be fined, are they going to be fined more because they are a British and not American company? How much will fcrashes of Boeing Max cost Boeing? Imagine these crashing planes were from a Chinese company, what would the consequences for the company be ?

The big economic projections are inseperable from politics. Only a naive person will believe otherwise

Re: Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These type of statements are considered "anti-trans": > people with obvious mental problems akin to anorexia > allow people to invade opposite gender areas such as toilets or sport or any number of other arenas of life > when people ignore reality At least, that's what I've been told when I express similar concerns.

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I agree, I see "anti-trans" and accusations of being "transphobic" typically used as a silencing tactic, to stymie and derail discussion.

But these issues really do need to be discussed, as there is real-world harm arising from these medical interventions, and from the non-consensual redrawing of the boundaries around single-sex spaces.

I think you're spot on with your comparison to attitudes towards FGM, it really does highlight the double standard.

Re: Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

#167

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> In short: ESG measures the worlds impact on the company NOT the company's impact on the world. This is not correct. ESG tracks, among others, the carbon output of a business. In other words, the impact of the business on the world. You can read more here: https://www.pwc.com/ca/en/today-s-issues/environmental-socia...

So I did look at the report you linked. It's very high level and sparse .. even then the only references to emissions reductions (including carbon) were pretty much: "company must adhere to laws and regulations and must take into account the future emissions reductions that are governmental targets" (paraphrasing).' I don't see how this is different from what I said. It does not rate how environmentally friendly the…

Page 5, Exhibit 2 is PwC's ESG framework. It includes carbon emissions. The criteria used by each ESG ratings agency differs. The major agencies are MSCI, Sustainalytics, Bloomberg, FTSE Russell, ISS Ratings and Rankings, CDP Climate, Water and Forest Scores, S&P Global ESG Score, and Moody’s ESG Solutions Group. All of them include carbon emissions in their Environmental score. For example, this is the methodology used by the largest ESG ratings agency, MSCI: https://www.msci.com/documents/1296102/34424357/MSCI+ESG+Rat.... You might need to register to gain access but it should be free. Continue reading the document and you will quickly realise that the score is not about how the world impacts the company, it is about how the company impacts the world. I understand that ESG has been sold to businesses on the premise that higher ESG scores might improve profitability, but that is an ancillary benefit. The purpose of the score is for marketing. That is, "our business is awesome because we have a high ESG score! Ignore all of the evil things we do!"

Re: Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

#168

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> It makes no sense why such ephemeral concepts should somehow lead to better investments. What specifically do you find ephemeral about ESG?

Social and governance are both factors that are going to be more political than results based. Getting a biased third party to evaluate companies on those two factors might as well be a game of darts, because what's considered actually important is going to vary based on the person's politics that's doing the evaluation (or writing the specific evaluation criteria). Social responsibility is a nice phrase to use when…

OK, i get some of your points. I don't agree very much but I understand your point.

I appreciate the response.

Re: Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

#169

ESG is such a obvious scam. It would be like this: Wife: Have you been cheating on me? Husband: Lets check my APS score. Wife: What? Husband: Adultery, Pushups and Soccer Watching score. Looks like I'm in the 1% of husbands as calculated by the experts. So I don't think you have anything to worry about.

It's a thinly veiled signal that a corporation will not act out against the status quo, and in return they will have protection from their corporate media and regulatory attack dogs. The sad thing is they have scientifically captured and subverted mainstream activism, which for a while around 50-60 years ago emerged as what appeared to be their biggest threat. You can "resist" the state of things all you like, but yo…

Right, but it seems to work for them.

Plenty of people believe that it is better to buy a gas powered Subaru instead of a Tesla because Elon doesn't support cluster bombing European farmland.

Re: Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

#170
post #106

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Just offset CO2 emissions by hiring more diverse staff from New York. Brilliant! How come Fossil fuel industry never thought of that?

Actually, they did https://www.investors.com/news/esg-companies-list-top-100-es... ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil are one the list along with a trucking company at number 2 and various other oil companies.

Here’s a funny thing, if oil companies technically powered their refineries with renewable energy, would they be some of the most green companies out there?
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