Statement on the Staff ESG Risk Alert
On Friday, the SEC’s Division of Examinations published a risk alert, describing the areas on which the staff is focusing in examinations of registered investment advisers’ and funds’ ESG offerings. This alert comes as many financial firms are finding gold in the green—they are offering ESG products because it is lucrative to do so. Therefore, as I have noted previously, asset manager accountability in the ESG space is important. Firms claiming to be conducting ESG investing need to explain to investors what they mean by ESG and they need to do what they say they are doing.
