Plain Talk: ESG investing could downgrade North Dakota’s credit rating
Minot, N.D. — The ESG movement in venture capitalism – the acronym stands for “environment, social, and governance” – is a threat to North Dakota’s economic well-being, but not just in the way you might be imagining.
Our state’s primary industries — energy and agriculture — are also carbon-heavy industries, which is why our state runs afoul of the “environment” part of ESG. Our state is investing big money into improving the environmental impact of our industries — we created, for example, the clean and sustainable energy fund which is driving money into things like carbon capture projects — but the ESG movement isn’t terribly pragmatic.
It’s very ideological, viewing only certain types of renewable energy as satisfying the “environmental” component of it the platform.
