Market insiders ditch ‘woke capitalism’: 87% say funds focussed on tree-hugging social causes will lose money, two thirds write off ‘ESG’ as a passing fad

Wall Street brokers and other market insiders are turning on the left-wing investment strategy known as ‘ESG’ or ‘woke capitalism,’ with growing numbers saying it’s little more than a passing fad, a poll shows.

A survey of Bloomberg terminal clients — typically big financial institutions — also found large numbers expected funds led by environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) values to lose money this year.

It comes as Republicans move against ESG funds in Congress, and as consumers reject firms that champion liberal causes, evidenced by the wokelash against Bud Light’s tie-up with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Researchers found that 87 percent of 116 Bloomberg terminal clients who aren’t directly engaged with ESG expect the sector’s investment funds to lag behind market benchmarks in the coming year.

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The 181 terminal clients who work in ESG — and have more skin in the game — are also pessimistic, polling showed. Fully 55 percent said the woke funds would underperform in the coming months.

In a starker rebuke of ESG, 69 percent of respondents who don’t work directly in the field called the strategy a fad, while only small numbers said it was becoming more relevant.

‘These survey results are proof positive that the ESG scam is unraveling,’ Will Hild, director of Consumers’ Research, a policy nonprofit, told DailyMail.com.

‘ESG is a grift and a fad which will underperform investment strategies that focus on serving consumers rather than woke politicians.’

ESG refers to a set of standards for a firm’s behavior that guide investors on where to put their money — for example, by funding wind farms to combat climate change, while pulling out of damage-causing oil and tobacco giants.

The strategy gets especially controversial when it guides funding to firms promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) schemes, which irk conservatives, who say they help women and minorities by sidelining white men.

This has spawned a fractious debate about whether efforts to make society fairer and cut carbon emissions are in the strategic interest for investors, by mitigating the risks of climate chaos and social disorder.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, an early champion of ESG investments, in June announced that he would no longer use the term, saying it has been ‘misused by the far left and the far right.’

‘ESG is a grift and a fad,’ says Will Hild, director of Consumers’ Research, a policy nonprofit

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House Republicans held a series of hearings last month, in which they called for quashing the Securities and Exchange Commission’s efforts to enforce more transparent corporate-disclosure rules of ESG-related factors.

As well as taking on the SEC, GOP politicians seek stricter oversight of proxy-advisory firms and also favor limiting — or even excluding — ESG-focused investments from some pension funds.

Bloomberg also gathered comments from users of their terminals — which are costly multi-screen systems leased by traders and others to analyze real-time financial market data and place trades.

They surveyed 349 clients, mostly in the US, where respondents were more critical of ESG.

Some said the strategy was here to stay, others called it a ‘politically-driven ideology that has no place in a professional investor’s decision-making’.

‘Our job is to provide returns for investors, not change the world,’ wrote one respondent.

Bloomberg surveyed 349 users of their costly terminals, which are typically big financial institutions

Another said ESG has ‘morphed from risk management to political activism for the left.’

Still, only a small minority of all those surveyed said their firms were pulling back from ESG products. Most respondents agreed that ‘we all have a role to play in protecting the world’s resources.’

Roughly two-thirds of those surveyed who are engaged in ESG said the backlash will likely force firms to abandon terms such as ESG, as they continue to support efforts to achieve the same goals.

Ultimately, however, a majority of all respondents expect politics to exit the conversation and be replaced by a more practical discussion about the future of ESG.

‘Participants of this survey are financial industry insiders, and they are increasingly realizing what we have been saying all along,’ added Hild.

‘We expect the collapse of ESG to continue, especially in the US, and will call out BlackRock or any other asset manager when they are using other people’s money to push their far left political agenda.’