Concern about catastrophic climate change has been the biggest factor driving ESG, yet the likelihood of climate change being catastrophic and the attainment of net zero are not open to debate or challenge by participants in financial markets. In the last of his four part review of Terrence Keeley’s “Sustainable,” Rupert Darwall argues that this…

Commentary In the third of his four part review of Terrence Keeley’s Sustainable, Rupert Darwall writes that ESG rests on a vision of the free-market economy that says capitalism needs to be led by people with the right values, which raises the question: Whose values? This makes ESG inherently divisive, explaining the pushback ESG is…

Commentary ESG has its origins in a speech by U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan at the Davos World Economic Forum in 1999. In the first of this four part review of Terrence Keeley’s “Sustainable: Moving Beyond ESG to Impact Investing,” Rupert Darwall shows how this created ESG’s dual mandate that accounts for its success—and its unsustainability…