According to GreenBiz: ” Lawsuits involving ESG-related issues have increased by 25 percent over the past three decades, according to research published earlier this year by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)…..
Broadridge, a fintech company, also highlights regulator crackdowns on greenwashing and an increase in event-driven securities litigation — where lawsuits are filed over significant events that impact a company’s share price — as drivers of ESG-related securities and class action lawsuits…..
One well-documented impact of ESG-related lawsuits is the trend of “greenhushing,” where companies under-communicate their sustainability activities to avoid greenwashing accusations or political attacks. With regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission taking action against corporations for misleading claims about corporate and product sustainability claims, the fallout related to greenwashing has expanded from reputational risk to compliance risk….
And this is before or in the initial stages of the “SEC’s planned climate-related disclosures rule and the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive…”
This doesn’t include Republican attacks on ESG or on any socially responsible investment criteria (investment managers are supposed to focus on profits, clients choking to death on discharges from their profitable investments are not investment relevant). Nor the reputational (as opposed to legal) risk of companies and investment managers claiming to be “ESG conscious” while investing in oil, or other non-green or anti-green sectors (just ask BlackRock’s Larry Fink defending ESG and then BlackRock appoints the CEO of Aramco to its board (BlackRock Appoints CEO of Oil Giant Aramco to Its Board – Bloomberg).
The full article can be found at: Get ready for more ESG lawsuits | Greenbiz
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