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| EST. READ TIME 1 MIN.New collected essay series explores the myths and realities of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) movement
ESG: Myths and Realities
- The ESG acronym stands for a range of environmental, social, and governance initiatives that critics of shareholder capitalism suggest public companies should voluntarily implement to improve the well-being of society.
- A companion development is the ongoing call for ESG-themed investing by securities regulators and professional investment managers.
- ESG (or sustainable) investing is meant to provide incentives to companies to be more socially responsible. Specifically, to the extent that investors favour “green” companies relative to “brown” companies, financial capital will flow to the former and away from the latter in a world where ESG-themed investment opportunities are available.
- There are two broad schools of thought on why companies and their investors should adopt ESG-intensive corporate and investment strategies.
- One maintains that doing so will make companies more profitable and thereby increase the net worth of their shareholders.
- The second asserts that companies have a social responsibility to implement ESG initiatives that go beyond simply complying with existing laws and regulations governing corporate behavior.
- The essays included in this series address various aspects of these two schools of thought, as well as government- and activist-led initiatives and proposals to promote ESG-themed investing specifically and stakeholder capitalism more generally.
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Steven Globerman
Senior Fellow and Addington Chair in Measurement, Fraser InstituteMr. Steven Globerman is a Senior Fellow and Addington Chair in Measurement at the Fraser Institute. Previously, he held tenuredappointments at Simon Fraser University and York University and has been a visiting professor at the University of California, University of British Columbia, Stockholm School of Economics, Copenhagen School of Business, and the Helsinki School of Economics.He has published more than 200 articles and monographs and is the author of the book The Impacts of 9/11 on Canada-U.S. Trade as well as a textbook on international business management. In the early 1990s, he was responsible for coordinating Fraser Institute research on the North American Free Trade Agreement.In addition, Mr. Globerman has served as a researcher for two Canadian Royal Commissions on the economy as well as a research advisor to Investment Canada on the subject of foreign direct investment. He has also hosted management seminars for policymakers across North America and Asia.Mr. Globerman was a founding member of the Association for Cultural Economics and is currently a member of the American and Canadian Economics Associations, the Academy of International Business, and the Academy of Management.He earned his BA in economics from Brooklyn College, his MA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his PhD from New York University.… Read more