Nonprofit Group Launches Website to Counter Anti-ESG Information

The Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and its Take on Wall Street campaign launched a digital platform, ESGexplainer.org, to provide information about environmental, social and governance factors in investing, according to a press release from the nonprofit.

The ESGexplainer.org site contains ESG introductory guides; examines potential impacts of anti-ESG legislation; and emphasizes the significance of responsible investing for modern financial decisionmaking and worker retirement security.

“We launched this website to demystify ESG investing amidst widespread disinformation campaigns,” says Natalia Renta, senior policy counsel for corporate governance and power at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, by email. “When worker retirement security is at stake, we can’t afford to have this level of misinformation out there, spread by dark-money influence groups and private interests of the fossil fuel industry.”

The Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund intends the platform to counteract anti-ESG campaigns, Renta says.

Last month, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives proposed a budget for the Department of Labor that would block the Department of Labor’s final rule permitting environmental, social and governance factors to be used when selecting retirement plan investments.

“All the people and interests that are pushing disinformation campaigns are going to be all-in next year, trying to jeopardize retirement security and sensible investing, with all sorts of measures at the state and federal levels,” Renta says. “We have to get ahead of that.”

In October, a group of 26 state attorneys general appealed to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals the dismissal of their complaint that challenged the legality of the DOL’s ESG rule.

The Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund is a coalition of more than 200 state and national, labor, election and policy organizations. Take on Wall Street, a coalition of groups dedicated to building greater equity into the financial system, including unions and other public policy-focused organizations, was launched by the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund in 2016.