From London to New York, an iron curtain is rapidly descending on research departments across Wall Street in the form of the sustainable investment movement, which posits that environmental , social, and governance, or ESG , factors are the key to market outperformance over the long term. Analysts that don’t get on board with the ESG program — especially when it comes to climate action and the need to decarbonize — run the risk of being canceled.

Like the lawyers in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Wall Street research analysts — whose fundamental sector and company analysis provides the underpinnings for security valuation and efficient primary and liquid secondary trading markets — stand in the way of the ESG mob now intent on creating a “sustainable global financial system.”

Consequently, one of the first things that ESG activists have focused on with their integration efforts over the past five years has been to co-opt research analysts on both the sell-side and the buy-side of the business and enlist them — mostly under duress — to serve as the Praetorian Guard for the ESG movement.

Read the full Washington Examiner article.
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Paul Tice is an Adjunct Professor of Finance at NYU Stern.