Vanguard Withdrawal from Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative

In this February 26 WSJ opinion piece, the author describes CEO Tim Buckley’s decision to back out of the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, citing attention to his firm’s fiduciary duty and the poor performance of ESG-driven investments. While state attorneys general, treasurers and comptrollers have been in the news battling over the appropriateness of ESG-driven investing in public pension funds, business leaders have been silent until recently. Buckley was quoted in a February 20 Financial Times article as stating that “[his firm’s] research indicates that ESG investing does not have any advantage over broad-based investing.”