It seems almost everyone involved in government, politics, and public pensions wants to talk about environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing for public pension systems. Depending on who is commenting, they will tell you ESG is either completely necessary for the strong long-term performance of investments or ESG will preclude any possibility of strong performance in the future. The reality, of course, is that ESG is a political construct and has no direct correlation to how a pension system should invest its assets.
Environmental, social, and governance issues are commonly packaged together in investment discussions through the ESG acronym, but a
