In the first half of this year alone, over 150 pieces of anti-ESG legislation were introduced in over 35 states. In my prior role as an Emerging Markets Sustainable Investment Strategist for a U.S.-based asset manager I was deep in the throes of the anti-ESG backlash, especially toward the end of my tenure. The key challenge for asset owners and managers alike is that there is both a growing base of investors/stakeholders who genuinely care about ESG, either as an input to and an output of the investment process, and a growing coalition of mainly Republican politicians fighting all notions of ESG investing because they are concerned that it can negatively impact long-term financial returns. My consulting team has the opportunity to work right at the crux of these two movements and determine how anti-ESG backlash might impact public pension system finances. Sustainable investing is a complex landscape that encompasses finance, economics, policy, and environmental science, which means it is a really exciting area to work in. We are all eager to provide our client with the most robust analysis possible given the short time we have!
Though we’re just a few weeks into this project, I have already learned so much. Not just about the anti-ESG landscape in the U.S., but also about how to best leverage the skills of a diverse set of team members over the course of a short-term project. We all come from different academic, professional, and cultural backgrounds, which means that our conversations have been rich with diverse perspectives. After getting a better understanding of the scope of our project following the first meeting with our client, we’ve undertaken some interesting preliminary research that we’re excited to dive into over the next two months. We were lucky in a sense to be working on a project with a fairly narrow scope, meaning the deliverables were perhaps more clear than other groups, but how we would achieve that scope was not so clear when we first started. Having thorough and honest conversations with our client to get a better sense of what they’re ultimately hoping to achieve from this process helped to guide us in the right direction.
Overall, it’s been great exploring sustainable investing in a different light. My past professional experience demonstrated to me how asset managers are impacted by the growing anti-ESG backlash, while this new experience will show me how asset owners are impacted. These are highly intertwined, but the impact manifests itself in very different ways. I love working on this project in conjunction with my other classwork, because it allows me to practice skills I learn in the classroom in a real-life setting, which can better prepare me for my continued career after I graduate. I’m really looking forward to continuing this work with my wonderful team!