How do you solve a problem like ESG?

ESG rating providers disagree over criteria

It has been a record-breaking year for inflows to funds labelled as ‘ESG’, namely those focused on environmental, social, and governance issues.

By some estimates, investment in these funds has increased ten fold over the past year. Yet there is also growing skepticism. Two separate research papers in the last year have highlighted the disagreement among ESG rating providers, one noting that the average correlation was 54%, the other, 46%. Differences in criteria (what counts as E or S or G), scope (how much of it counts), and weight (how important each factor is) mean that raters only agree about half the time. By contrast, the correlation among credit rating agencies is about 99%.  It is not hard to see the problems that cou...