Comments by "Louis Giokas" (@louisgiokas2206) on "Ask Peter: What Are My Thoughts on Environmental Social Governance (ESG)?" video.

  1. ESG is silly. The silliest thing about it is combining the three elements. For example, Environmental concerns are more a subset of regulation. As your example of the electric (not electronic) trucks in the Northeast exposes, incorrect actions in this area by individual companies does not meet the goal. In fact, the goals are not even clearly laid out. Again, with vehicles, the goal is the reduction of the carbon footprint, not only at the point of use, but overall. What Social has to do with environmental escapes me. You may contrive some sort of connection between the two. The elements usually considered Social are generally things that businesses should be doing anyway. Here again, the goals may not be advantageous to the business. One example I looked into was workforce diversity. I saw a detailed study of the IT industry. The US and China had among the least diverse workforces. This is a field where real skill matters. The most diverse country was South Africa. Is that an IT powerhouse? You can't force diversity in such fields and hope to thrive. I have seen results. I see Governance as similar to Social. The things considered part of the G in ESG are things one should be doing. The biggest fault of this type of investing is the mashing together of disparate elements. Remember that companies get an ESG "score". Who is really responsible for this? Who audits this score? The issues with the scores that have been highlighted show the problem.
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