[makomk]

In a way it already has lead to worse outcomes. For example, ESG campaigning has successfully discouraged investment in oil and gas production especially in democratic Western countries. The result of this is that there's now insufficient production capacity and prices and profits have gone sky-high for the companies that do have any, whilst companies in the rest of the economy have seen costs go through the roof. (Russia's actions didn't help, but the energy supply was looking pretty dicey even before that.)

The political result of this is that campaigners and journalists have accused the companies that are producing fossil fuels of profiteering, blamed them for the fact that energy and everything produced using it is so unaffordable (rather than blaming those who refused to invest in more production), and called for windfall taxes to take away and redistribute those supposedly-undeserved profits. Most of Europe is actually carrying out those windfall taxes too. If it wasn't for that political intervention, those who excluded fossil fuel production from their investments would be losing out and those who didn't gaining, as they arguably deserved, but governments are putting their hand on the scale and tilting returhns towards what ESG campaigners say they should be rather than what the markets give.

[luckylion]

But that's then working as designed, isn't it? You're not limited to investing in Western countries that have deprioritized power production. If that'll lead to worse outcomes, investing in a country that doesn't follow their ideology should get you better returns.

> Most of Europe is actually carrying out those windfall taxes too.

Sure. Don't get me wrong, I think it's stupid. But, and that's a pretty important but, the population has elected the politicians suggesting these things (and the ones before them who made the decisions not to invest in oil and gas and nuclear power), and the population has empowered the journalists (or their companies) running those campaigns. It seems to be what people really, truly want.

You'll just need to set your indicators one level further up. A country that is fundamentally wrong in capital allocation and prefers to bail out citizens and industry via tax money instead of investing into infrastructure will have worse outcomes. Taxes will have to rise at some point, industry will leave etc, so you'd invest in a different country where they're not following the same ideology.

Sure, it would be easier if people didn't do stupid things, but I doubt you'll be able to convince them.

[kennend3]

> For example, ESG campaigning has successfully discouraged investment in oil and gas production especially in democratic Western countries.

Can you provide proof?

This post would disagree: https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/highlights/rbc-competitio...

"The report, which surveyed 60 banks around the world, found RBC had increased its investments in fossil fuel projects to nearly $38 billion from over $19 billion in 2020."

Nearly doubling your investment in fossil fuel projects makes it seam like "ESG" has done nothing to "discourage investments".

The bank named in the article has a "ESG" division as well.

So if you want to be environmentally friendly, they are the bank for you. If you want to open a new fossil fuel well, they are the bank for you...

[ZeroGravitas]

So, the bad effect of ESG is less investment in oil and gas?

Do you have examples of how ESG is bad for someone who thinks thats a good thing?

[luckylion]

If you're allowed to include second order effects, I think that's obvious to many in Europe right now, energy prices exploding, driving very high inflation, making people poorer, making winter look much more threatening, and generally creating destabilization.

I don't believe you'll find many who will openly say that that's what they wanted when they said they wanted fewer investments in oil and gas.

[OrangeMonkey]

... The 2022/2023 winter in Europe and the balkans should help solidify that in your mind. Germany lost its pipeline to Russia where it was sourcing its natural gas because they did not want to produce it locally. This directly caused them to start competing on the international scene for its gas.

Where do you think this 'surplus' of gas is coming from? Its not 'spare capacity' that was sitting around... its coming from poorer countries that can't compete for the same gas due to the price Germany is now willing to pay.

Consider Bangladesh and the political unrest because of the rising fuel prices. [1]. For gods sake, they had a nationwide power blackout that lasted 7 hours. Why? Because the gas supplies were being usurped by Europe. [2].

> Now with Russia-Ukraine war squeezing supply, the richer European nations are getting dibs on whatever is up for grabs. With winter and a cap on Russian fuel imports approaching, European buyers will look to stock up on even more LNG.

Maybe we disagree - but I would say that widespread starvation and energy blackouts impacting the populations of developing countries directly related to ESG policies is pretty damn bad. The road to hell is paved with good intentions - look down.

[1] - https://www.voanews.com/a/inflation-unrest-challenge-banglad...

[2] - https://qz.com/power-hungry-europe-is-leaving-developing-cou...

[ZeroGravitas]

> Germany lost its pipeline to Russia where it was sourcing its natural gas because they did not want to produce it locally.

I think you skipped over a few steps here and lost me.

Germany, which doesn't have much gas, "lost" a pipeline due to ESG investment metrics? Or only built a pipeline that it then "lost" due to ESG?

Either way, that's not something I recall happening.

[OrangeMonkey]

Don't be purposefully obtuse - its not helpful to anyone and just makes you look like a troll.

Germany did not want to produce oil/gas locally due to concerns about environmental impact. Instead, they decided to import it from Russia. With the Russia pipeline destroyed, they are now competing for these same 'dirty resources' on the global scale resulting in widespread suffering in the developing world.

If you are going to imply that you didn't understand this as the meaning of the statement, I think its pretty telling.