ESG was basically instantly exploited to the point of uselessness. It's kinda funny how for a little while slapping ESG on your investment product would get you a free bump, and equally funny how conservative governments completely failed to see it as nothing more than a marketing technique and ascribed far more importance to the label than anyone else ever did.
For those that don’t live in TX, this just shows how much weight the O&G industry pulls in this state. All conservative politicians in this state are heavily funded by O&G dark money and Christian zealots.
Given the heavy reliance on oil and gas income, the Texas schools fund should aim to reduce exposure to oil and gas risks, due to market changes, regulations, and renewable energy trends etc solely from an investment strategy perspective.
Something isn't right here. Blackrock will do whatever their clients tell them and the largest share holders of fossil companies like Chevron, Exxon and Shell. It seems the school district is upset that Blackrock runs ESG funds as well as their index, growth, etc funds.
I'd have thought the Ideologically Pure folks over in Texas would invest/divest solely and exclusively on the basis of whether it's a good place to get returns? Even accepting their excuse that ESG investing is suffocating their oil and gas-dependent "long term financial health," that's ultimately just saying they think the government needs to more strongly place its thumb on the scales.
What’s funny about this is that, concerns about fraud in ESG metrics aside, this will cause Texas schools to lose out on the gains from rapidly growing clean energy companies, many of which are taking advantage of the deregulated Texas power grid to get a foothold.
0.00085% of their Assets under management. If compared to their assets under management growth from 2022 to 2023 it's just over two days of growth