ESG的韧性（上）

Finance & economics

财经板块

Buttonwood: The tenacity of ESG

梧桐树：ESG的韧性

A green-investing boom has not been followed by bust

绿色投资的繁荣过后，萧条并未袭来

The standard story of 2021’s green-finance boom goes something like this: in a phenomenon that reached fever pitch a year ago at the COP26 convention in Glasgow, a lot of investors lost their heads.

2021年的那场绿色金融热潮，按照标准说法来讲述大致是这样的：一年前在格拉斯哥举行的COP26大会上，出现了一种热潮，许多投资者都在其中失去了理智。

A potent cocktail of cheap money and sanctimony fuelled a boom in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, during which asset managers and bankers pitched themselves as environmental saviours.

受廉价资金和道貌岸然的强大合力影响，环境、社会和公司治理(ESG)投资走向了繁荣，在此期间，资产管理公司和银行家将自己标榜为环境救世主。

Nemesis followed hubris.

狂妄之后，报应紧随而至。

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and subsequent elevated gas and oil prices, reminded the world just how much it needed fossil fuels, and how profitable investing in them could be.

俄罗斯对乌克兰的入侵，以及随之而来的天然气和石油价格上涨，都提醒了世界各国它们有多么需要化石燃料，以及投资化石燃料可能带来多大的利润。

The cynicism of the asset managers and bankers was exposed as regulators cracked down on “greenwashing”.

在监管机构打击“漂绿”行为时，资产管理公司和银行家的犬儒主义暴露了出来。

DWS, Germany’s largest asset manager, was raided by the authorities following a whistleblower complaint; Britain’s advertising watchdog banned HSBC, a bank, from making “misleading” environmental claims.

比如，德国最大的资产管理公司DWS在接到举报人投诉后遭到当局突击搜查；英国广告监管机构禁止汇丰银行发布“误导性”环保声明。

Far from saving the world, ESG thus became mired in greenwash and scandal.

ESG非但没有拯救世界，反而陷入了漂绿和丑闻的泥潭。

There is just one problem with this fable of financial greenery’s fall to earth: hard facts.

金融绿色化的神话距离跌落神坛只差一步：确凿的事实。

True, appetite for ESG investing has fallen.

诚然，投资者对ESG的兴趣已经有所下降。

Net inflows are well below those of last year.

净流入远低于去年的水平。

But for all the talk of a backlash, sustainable-investment funds have been much more resilient than other funds during this year’s downturn.

然而，尽管人们都在谈论反弹，但在今年的经济低迷期间，可持续投资基金还是比其他基金更具韧性。

According to Morningstar, a data firm, $139bn had flowed into sustainable funds by the end of September, compared with $643bn of net outflows from the broader market.

数据公司晨星的数据显示，截至9月底，已有1390亿美元资金流入可持续发展基金，而整体市场的资金净流出为6430亿美元。

European funds have attracted the bulk of the money, receiving 89% of total inflows into sustainable funds, but even in America such funds have drawn more money than other investment vehicles.

欧洲基金吸引了大部分资金，获得了流入可持续发展基金总资金的89%，但即使在美国，此类基金也比其他投资工具吸引了更多资金。

Why have green funds remained attractive?

为什么绿色基金仍具有吸引力？

It is certainly not because of juicy returns.

答案肯定不是回报丰厚。

These funds tend to invest heavily in technology stocks, which often achieve high ESG ratings owing to some combination of progressive Californian values, asset-light business operations and sophisticated human-resources departments which do things like diversity monitoring as a matter of course.

这些基金倾向于大举投资科技股，科技股往往获得较高的ESG评级，这归功于加州开明的价值观、轻资产业务和成熟的人力资源部门的某种结合，这些部门理所当然地做着多样性监测等工作。

Such stocks have performed poorly this year.

这类股票今年表现不佳。

And while ESG funds are overexposed to this year’s losers, they are underexposed to the big winners: fossil-fuel firms.

尽管ESG基金对今年的输家敞口过大，但它们对大赢家——化石燃料公司的敞口却很小。

The iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA index, one of the biggest passive ESG funds, is down by 18% this year, compared with a 16% fall in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, which tracks the S&P 500 index of American stocks.

iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA指数（最大的被动型ESG基金之一）今年下跌了18%，而追踪美国股市标准普尔500指数的SPDR标普500ETF下跌了16%。