NPR’s Copley: Companies Aren’t Ditching ESG, They’re Just Keeping It Quiet

On Monday’s edition of the NPR Politics Podcast, NPR Climate Desk Correspondent Michael Copley stated that companies investment firms like BlackRock aren’t changing their behavior around ESG investing due to anti-ESG pushes, they’re just being “a lot less eager to talk about what they’re doing publicly on this stuff. By all indications, it’s not changing how they’re thinking about investment decisions and what they consider to be a real material risk for a company.”

After Copley mentioned some states pulling money from BlackRock and state laws against ESG investing for managers of pension funds, co-host Tamara Keith asked, [relevant exchange begins around 7:05] “Is that having an impact? Is it changing the behavior of these big investment firms?”

Copley answered, “It’s hard to tell right now. I think what we have seen is companies have been a lot less eager to talk about what they’re doing publicly on this stuff. By all indications, it’s not changing how they’re thinking about investment decisions and what they consider to be a real material risk for a company. But they’re talking less about it publicly. And what we’ve also seen is, in the insurance industry, a lot of insurance companies quitting a group that was set up initially to try to drive down emissions in the economy. So there is pullback around the edges about what companies are going to do publicly.”

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