Taking into account environmental, social or governance (ESG) criteria in financial decisions is an “ideological” posture, according to the Republican Governor of Florida and possible candidate for the next presidential elections, Ron DeSantis.

At the end of August, he ordered bankers managing his state’s pension fund not to consider these criteria in order to “prioritize the financial security of the inhabitants (…) rather than fanciful notions of a utopian future”. .

The Texas comptroller published the next day a list of companies, including BlackRock and European banks, which he said “boycott” oil companies and with which local authorities must no longer sign new contracts.

Its counterpart in West Virginia, a state rich in coal mines and natural gas, took a similar decision at the end of July against BlackRock but also Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.

“Any institution with policies aimed at weakening our energy sector, our tax revenues and our labor market has a clear conflict of interest with the management of taxpayers’ money”, he then justified.

But the targeted banks deny any boycott.

– “Disconnected from reality” –

Some of them have decided to no longer finance oil exploration projects in the Arctic, for example. But they continue to lend cheerfully to companies in the sector.

JPMorgan believes in this regard that the decision of the official of West Virginia is “short-sighted and disconnected from reality”.

BlackRock, the company with the most money in the world, claims to invest more than $108 billion in Texas oil companies, starting with ExxonMobil.

“Public officials, elected and appointed, have a duty to act in the best interests of the people they serve. Politicizing public pension funds, restricting access to investments and undermining pensioner investment returns, does not comply with this obligation”, advances the Wall Street giant in a press release.

Joshua Lichtenstein, a Ropes lawyer

But “political rhetoric describes a world that does not exist,” he said.

Asset managers “don’t choose between investing according to ESG criteria and investing to make money, they use ESG criteria as an integral part of their strategy to mitigate risk,” he told AFP.

They are pushed in this direction by more and more customers, in Europe, Japan, or in democratic states.

Maine thus adopted a law in 2021 obliging its pension fund to sell all stakes in hydrocarbon companies.

– Affected taxpayers –

The positions taken by Republican states could even ultimately harm their taxpayers, says Ben Cushing, finance specialist responsible for the Sierra Club association.

Texas, for example, passed a law in 2021 prohibiting municipalities from signing new contracts with banks limiting financing to hydrocarbon and firearms companies. Result: the number of institutions participating in their bond loans has decreased and negotiated rates are higher, concluded a study by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the US central bank published in June.

It is still too early to know what effects this Republican offensive will have, believes Joshua Lichtenstein.

It should not a priori threaten a trend already well rooted among clients who are increasingly sensitive to the effects of climate change, in particular, and among asset managers whose mission is to take all risks into account.

But the Republicans “know how to make noise” and if they really carry out their threats, as in Florida, the asset managers will perhaps, out of prudence, seek to avoid any conflict, suggests the lawyer.

The repeated attacks can also cause financial institutions to slow down their efforts just when “they were beginning, slowly and belatedly (…), to recognize the very real financial implications of climate change”, laments Ben Cushing.