I looked up Equity ETFs with “ESG” in their description using the Bloomberg function, “ETF”

I

$334bn in total AUM

Wow, investors are hungry for this so took a “deep dive” into the largest – $22bn iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA “composed of U.S. companies that have positive environmental, social & governance characteristics as identified by the index provider”

“.. that applies the following business involvement screens:

civilian firearms, controversial weapons, tobacco, thermal coal and oil sands”

Seems clear

First up, Tobacco

WHO says it kills 8m / yr

And I detest smoking – this is easy

I also hate guns, will never own one

But how many people do firearms kill?

Amnesty Intl, – 1.4m firearm-related deaths globally between 2012 & 2016

So is ~350k of annual deaths the cutoff?

Because how many does Alcohol kill?

WHO – 3m

Any alcohol firms in this ETF?

I know the large ones (ABI, Diageo) are European

Scroll down, spot Brown-Forman & Molson Coors

But I do see lots of retailers & they sell alcohol, maybe some sell guns

I wonder where you draw the line?

But while scrolling I notice Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Kellogg & Starbucks all in the top 100

Hang on, a Grande Starbucks Caramel Brulee Latte with whole milk is 390 calories

That’s flatulent cows + sugar

What’s obesity’s hit rate?

2.8m

Now I’m confused

So, guns at 350k p/a is bad

but fast food, sugary drinks & alcohol at 5.8m is fine?

Why, because they kill you slowly, whereas guns kill you fast?

And I see McDonald’s, so what about the meat & fish they sell, haven’t they seen Cowspiracy?

It can’t be Social because I spotted Nike on the list & Amazon isn’t unionised

So it must be Environmental

Back to the top

Apple is the largest holding so I looked up their Environmental Progress Report and see they generated

22.6MMT (million metric tons) of CO2 equivalent per year

Huh, I thought California was sunny, no solar?

Of course, this also excludes all the power used by their devices once sold

so how does that differ from the fuel we burn, once sold by the oil majors?

Microsoft #2

Fuzzy chart but looks like 11 MMT

And there’s the device user issue again

Amazon #3

But don’t they own~ 80 aircraft + 30k trucks + 20k trailers?

61MMT

What?

61 million metric tons of CO2

From the 3rd largest holding in the World’s largest ESG Aware fund

Imagine an Unaware fund!

Clearly, market-cap-weighted, not ESG friendly scale weighted…

How much does an airline emit?

Delta in 2019 (pre covid)

40MMT

What position are they in the ETF?

Can’t find them

But I do see UPS 38 MMT

Oh there’s ExxonMobil 120MMT

Enough!

I see no logic to this whatsoever so I’m just going to say it:

I think this ETF ESG investing is complete & utter nonsense

A dishonest sales idea trying to capitalise on our climate emergency

And worse, people now think they’ve “done their bit” because they’re in an “ESG fund”

You haven’t

Help the planet properly & stop wasting your time with this rubbish