The ESG Mirage

If you’ve paid any attention to financial news, you’ve probably heard that a new trend has been sweeping the markets. It’s called ESG investing and it’s allegedly going to change the world.

ESG is just an acronym for “environmental, social, and governance.” And it involves investing in companies doing good things for the world around them.

Those companies might be tackling climate change with alternative energy solutions. Or they might be making a positive impact in the communities around them by providing job training or subsidized transportation.

They could even just have strong shareholder rights, reasonable executive compensation packages, and strong internal controls (the governance side of things).

And thanks to the growing popularity of ESG investing, most mutual funds, brokerages, and robo-advisers now offer some kind of product labeled “ESG.”

But a closer look at these products (mainly mutual funds and ETFs) shows they’re not really invested in the companies they claim to be.

Fake It Till You Make It?

I went Googling the other day and found myself a list of what U.S. News & World Report called “socially responsible ETFs to buy now.” So I went through the list to see what stocks those funds would have you believe are “socially responsible.”

And I was a little surprised (but not that much) to find that every single one of them had a substantial allocation to… get this… oil and gas companies.

The iShares MSCI KLD 400 Social ETF (DSI) has holdings in ConocoPhillips, Schlumberger, Marathon Petroleum, Phillips 66, Pioneer Natural Resources, Valero, Occidental Petroleum, Hess Corp., Cheniere Energy, Baker Hughes, Devon Energy, Marathon Oil Corp., along with numerous airlines and train companies.

Doesn’t sound to environmentally conscious to me, but what do I know? Oh, yeah, I know it’s invested in oil and gas companies but masquerading as an environmentally conscious fund.

It’s not the only one, either. The vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (ESGV) is invested in all the same trains and airplanes, plus several gold miners, Valvoline, Goodyear, Cooper (rubber is made from oil), Southwest Gas, and One Gas, to name a few.

They’re all just like this. The individual allocations aren’t huge, but when you add them up, you’ve got a good 2%–3% of the fund invested in oil and gas companies.

And when you go out a little further and include major polluters like trains and airlines, you get an even bigger percentage.

That doesn’t sound like responsible investing to me. It sounds more like a way to separate you from your money.

Don’t Count ESG Out

But that’s not to say ESG investing isn’t a good thing or that it doesn’t have a place in your portfolio.

It just means that you can’t rely on fund managers to pick the companies you want to support. Otherwise you’ll wind up paying oil companies in your quest to make a greener future.

And that means you should be making those decisions for yourself. You shouldn’t just buy a fund so you can virtue-signal at your next Zoom happy hour. You should invest directly in companies making a positive impact on the world around you.

And that’s actually easier than you’d think. You see, there’s a list of the U.S. publicly traded companies that score the highest marks for ESG.

You can find it here: “Here Are the 100 Most Sustainable Companies Right Now.”

But to make it even easier, I’ve included the top 10 below:

You’ll notice none of them have the words “oil” or “gas” in the name. Some might even surprise you.

Tiffany makes jewelry. How’s that helping the planet? It’s not, but the other things the company’s doing outside its normal business do.

So before you write a company off, you should check it out and see if maybe it’s making a difference you just didn’t know about.

And before you go tossing your money into some fund managed by a person or robot you’ve never met, you should check out what they define as a “positive impact.” You never know if they think Exxon Mobil is the savior of the environment.

But you can’t just base your investments off a list, either. There are far more than 100 companies out there making a difference. And some are making a huge difference that will make investors a huge profit.

ESG + EV = $$$

In fact, my colleague Brit Ryle and I recently uncovered a small, little-known company that could hold the key to a truly sustainable future.

It’s come up with an innovation in energy storage technology, and that tech could be the main force that ushers in a new era of energy production.

Its device could literally end our dependence on fossil fuels… for good.

But that’s not all this new technology could make into reality. It’s powerful enough that it could bring all of your favorite science fiction dreams to life.

Ever wanted to hop in a flying car and soar to the beach? Thanks to this company’s technology, that may soon be a reality.

Have a hope that you could power your entire home (or perhaps even town) with renewable energy from sources like solar fields and wind farms?

Well, right now you can’t, but thanks to this company, in just a few years we may be able to power entire cities with renewable energy.

It’s the ability to usher in those kinds of advances that gives this company its massive potential.

This isn’t just one device. It’s a new kind of technology that makes all kinds of other technology possible.

Think about wireless communication as an example: If it weren’t for our ability to send data over the airwaves, we wouldn’t have cellphones or GPS. Investors wouldn’t have made millions investing in data centers. Apple would just be a computer company.

If it weren’t for that one critical piece of technology, thousands of other things we take for granted every day would never have been invented.

That’s the kind of power I’m talking about with this company and its innovations.

It could herald the days of flying cars, high-speed trains, smart cities, driverless vehicles, even virtual and augmented reality.

Without the technology this one company has created, all of that stuff (along with millions of other concepts) is dead in the water.

And that’s why we’re convinced this company could be the best investment of your lifetime.

Your Ticket to Life-Changing Profits

That’s also why we’ve put together a presentation detailing the opportunity this company and its new technology represent:

We cover the different industries this innovation touches. We explain the background of the genius serial inventor who helped create this world-altering tech.

We even cover some of the advances it will help bring about in the very near future.

And most importantly, we explain exactly how you can get invested now — before the rank-and-file investors find out and drive the share price up to astronomical levels.

You can get access to the presentation and everything you need to get invested by clicking this link.

It’ll take less than an hour of your time and it could be the investment that secures your retirement and cements your family’s legacy.

I’m so adamant that you get this information that I’ve also compiled a written report packed with all the same details.

I just want to make sure you don’t have any excuses not to get the information today and get yourself invested before all the profits are gone.

Don’t Miss Out

This company has explosive potential, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see its share price jump by 25%, 50%, even 100% in the next couple of months.

And that’s why I’m pushing you to get this information NOW. I want you to get invested before the shares rally out of reach.

I want you to ride the wave of profits from the bottom floor all the way to the penthouse. And I’m convinced that if you get in now, that’s exactly what you’ll be set up for.

So take a few minutes out of your day today and watch the presentation my team and I have put together. Or read the report I wrote if you decide you don’t want to watch the presentation.

Just make sure you do it soon. Every day, more investors are getting on board. And every new investor is going to bring the share price just a little bit higher.

And a lot of little moves can add up to a really big one. So if you want to get the full benefit of this research, you need to see it while it’s still fresh.

If you want to ride this coming wave of profits, you need to take a little time today and get yourself positioned AHEAD of the crowd, not behind it.

Here’s one more link before I let you go (because I’m really serious when I say you need to see this soon… before it’s too late).

I hope you take advantage of my research and get invested to benefit from this company’s innovation.

You’ve got everything you need. All you’ve got to do is click the link and get the information.

To your wealth,

Jason Williams

@TheReal_JayDubs

Angel Research on Youtube

After graduating Cum Laude in finance and economics, Jason designed and analyzed complex projects for the U.S. Army. He made the jump to the private sector as an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley, where he eventually led his own team responsible for billions of dollars in daily trading. Jason left Wall Street to found his own investment office and now shares the strategies he used and the network he built with you. Jason is the founder of Main Street Ventures, a pre-IPO investment newsletter; the founder of Future Giants, a nano cap investing service; and authors The Wealth Advisory income stock newsletter. He is also the managing editor of Wealth Daily. To learn more about Jason, click here.

Want to hear more from Jason? Sign up to receive emails directly from him ranging from market commentaries to opportunities that he has his eye on.