Beware of Fakers In Green Investing

By FRANK LINGO

In case you're smarter than I am with money management (and, as in the old fable, I plan with money like grasshoppers plan for winter) you might have savings to invest for your retirement nest egg.

If you want your money to be used in ethical businesses, there are guidelines you can follow. "Environmental, Social and Governance" (ESG) labels are commonly applied to companies that adhere to standards of conduct for the greater good of people and planet.

Only thing is you better be cautious because there are some companies who greenwash their actions when they are not really working to improve social and environmental conditions.

The big oil companies are prime examples of this fakery. For many years, these fossil fools have spent many millions on ads to present themselves as striving to develop renewable energy for a sustainable future. All this was presumably to inspire trust in the public and draw potential investors.

The reality? A Feb. 11, 2022, article in The Guardian features an International Energy Agency (IEA) figure that oil and gas companies spent only about 1% of their capital expenditures on clean energy in 2020. Preliminary numbers indicate a slight increase may have happened in 2021.

The Guardian article quotes Chris Venables of Green Alliance: “The time for oil and gas companies to have invested in the clean energy transition was two decades ago – when they were peddling climate change denialism. If they were serious about renewable energy, they would be doing it right now, but instead their investments are largely going to new oil and gas."

Connor Schwartz at Friends of the Earth, added, “... drilling for oil and gas is more lucrative than investing in cheap, green energy. This is partly due to government handouts in the form of subsidies and tax breaks, which reward huge multinationals for exacerbating climate breakdown instead of penalizing them.” Those rewards amount to billions of dollars every year.

Even when they divest, they're profiing, not progressing. The Economist ran an article on Feb 12 stating, "The Western world’s dirty assets are heading into the shadows. Public firms, including European oil majors such as Shell, and large listed mining outfits, are selling their most polluting assets in order to please ESG investors and meet their carbon-reduction targets. But those oil wells and coal mines are not being shut down."

So the oil companies get an F on the ESG test for ethical investing. But if you want to be like the ant in the fable, what are some ways to invest that grow green companies while building your nest egg?

A Forbes Advisor article listed the seven best investment firms offering ESG options for March 2022. Their choices are Vanguard, iShares MSCI, Parnassus, iShares Global Clean Energy, Shelton Green Alpha, 1919 Socially Responsive Balanced Fund and AllianceBernstein Sustainable Global Fund.

A little research will help narrow down the places you'll prefer to park your portfolio. GreenAmerica.org is another website than can guide you to socially responsible investing. The Internet has made such research fairly easy. That is, if your planning for the future is more mindful than my method, which is to buy bananas with a bit of green still on them.

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com. Visit Lingo's website: www.greenbeat.world

From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2022

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