A broken system needs urgent repairs
The environmental, social and governance (ESG) approach to investment is broken. It needs to be streamlined and stripped of sanctimoniousness, argues Henry Tricks
Desiree fixler is, in her own words, “no wallflower”. When she was hired in 2020 to be head of sustainability at dws, a German asset manager affiliated to Deutsche Bank, she reckons Asoka Wöhrmann, her boss, must have known the type of person he was taking on. She was a Wall Street veteran. She was battle-hardened, having traded credit derivatives in the run-up to the 2007-09 financial crisis. She had seen the power wielded by regulators. If you pictured somebody who works in sustainability as a soft touch, think again. “I’m hard core, especially when it comes to compliance,” Ms Fixler says.
This article appeared in the Special report section of the print edition under the headline “In need of a clean-up”
From the July 23rd 2022 edition
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