Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have just abandoned the Net Zero Banking Alliance. While it seems to be yet another dire omen for so-called environment, social and corporate governance (ESG) investing, it would be premature for people on the Right to imagine that the Left’s lock on the finance industry is ending.

ESG investing is notionally the idea that investors should consider the eponymous non-financial factors of ESG in making finance and investment decisions. The biggest part of “ESG” investing is the “E” (environment) and the biggest part of the “E” is climate and the dubious goal of “net zero emissions,” which I have previously written about here and here.

The phenomenon of ESG investing started out in the 1960s as “socially responsible investing” (SRI) investing, was rebranded as “corporate social responsibility” investing in the late 1990s and then rebranded again as ESG investing in the 2010s.

SRI/CSR/ESG investing was invented by the Left as a means of using stock ownership for political purposes. The practice started with labor unions in the 1960s. After the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, a cadre of Left-wing activists got together to figure out how to use investment as a means of advancing the rest of the Left’s agenda.

In “Biz-War and the Out of Power Elite,” author Jarol B. Manheim writes, “22 young and wealthy individuals who shared a common concern about the conservative turn the country had taken … hit upon the idea to pool their [financial] resources and direct them at what they saw as socially and politically desirable programs…” aimed at corporations. Though it took time, this program succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Meanwhile, the Right was largely asleep.

While Nobel laureate Milton Friedman prominently pushed back against SRI investing in his 1970 New York Times magazine article entitled, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” there was no organized follow-up until 2005. At that point, a friend of mine and I launched a publicly traded mutual fund called the Free Enterprise Action Fund to push back against the success the Left was having in foisting its CSR agenda on publicly-traded companies.

While our fund had success, we didn’t have the resources to survive the catastrophic market conditions of the housing bubble collapse. The deep-pocketed Left, though, easily survived the tough market conditions and emerged on the other side with near total control of the finance industry with its rebranded and steroidal ESG investing strategy. Virtually all large banks and Wall Street firms joined one or more of the Net Zero Bank Alliance, Net Zero Asset Managers, Net Zero Insurance Alliance, Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), Climate Act 100+ and other similar groups.

But this success bred arrogance on the Left and awoke conservatives to a degree that the Free Enterprise Action Fund could only have dreamed about in the 2000s. By 2020, the ESG empire and its anti-fossil fuel, anti-conservative, DEI and other “woke” policies and practices had sufficiently alarmed red state politicians into pushback. State investigations, hearings and laws reining in ubiquitous ESG actors and activities popped up. Congress got involved. Then, ESG investing began to reveal itself as a poor investment strategy.

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Perhaps most importantly, though, it had become increasingly clear that the ESG actors were illegally colluding as a cartel, possibly running afoul of anti-trust laws. While the ESG actors could possibly organize themselves into pushback against red states, the post-2024-election prospect of facing a federal government entirely controlled by Republicans would be too daunting. So, amid the holiday distractions, Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase all dropped out of the Net Zero Banking Alliance.

But those concerned about ESG would be wise not to declare victory and move on. The Left has acquired immense influence and power over the financial industry and has no intention of surrendering it. ESG may be dead as brand, but not as a strategy. The Left has been invested in SRI/CSR/ESG for a long time and for the long-term. While they will likely head underground for a few years, they will certainly be plotting a comeback that may start as soon as the 2026 elections.

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Steve Milloy is a senior legal fellow with the Energy and Environment Legal Institute.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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