Mark Gilbert , Columnist

Former BlackRock Executive Blows the Whistle on Greenwashing

Fear of missing out on fund flows gives asset managers a strong incentive to pretend all their offerings are green.

March 23, 2021 at 2:00 AM EDT

Mark Gilbert is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering asset management. A former London bureau chief for Bloomberg News, he is author of “Complicit: How Greed and Collusion Made the Credit Crisis Unstoppable.”

Unintended consequences.
Photographer: Isabel Infantes/AFP via Getty Images

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With so much money flowing into securities deemed compatible with environmental, social and governance standards, the risk of asset managers disingenuously promoting their offerings as being ESG compliant is high and rising. Unfortunately, new European Union rules designed to delineate the industry’s performance will likely lead to more greenwashing, not less.

Last week, Tariq Fancy, the former chief investment officer for sustainable investing at BlackRock Inc., the world’s biggest asset manager overseeing $8.7 trillion, castigated the industry’s duplicity, in an article for USA Today:

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