After the political theatrics end, ESG will still be part of private markets
Private equity firms place value on ESG, even outside the political limelight, and that suggests sustainable investing will live on.
Expert analysis by Toby Mitchenall
Much has been written about the ESG backlash in the US. It rumbles on, but the impact remains limited.
In places, the anti-ESG sentiment has been transposed into laws that Robert Eccles , a visiting professor at Sa?d Business School, University of Oxford , described as “crazy”. This is presumably why only 24 percent of them have passed.
With a long background in sustainable finance, Eccles is able to speak on a broad range of topics, which he did at PEI Group’s London office this week. Eccles classes himself as a sustainability pragmatist and much of the discussion circled back to a need to move past the “political theatre”, to work across the political aisle, and have more reasoned discussions about the correct way forward on the climate crisis and other matters of sustainability. At both ends of the spectrum, opinions are too extreme to be productive, he said.
Eccles, however, is optimistic that beyond the 2024 US presidential race, the anti-ESG movement will run out of steam: “You can sort of feel it: the wind going out of the sails, because the economic logic behind it isn’t there.”