This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

  According to an article in Black Enterprise Magazine, "Columbus, Ohio’s largest city and capital, could become home to a Black-owned bank if leaders can make it happen. Adelphi Bank founder Jordan Miller said it is talking with 'high net-worth individuals and institutions in Central Ohio as it seeks to raise the initial $20 million, ' according to Columbus Business First. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) granted approval subject to conditions in May for the startup." See:  https://www.blackenterprise.com/proposed-black-bank-aims-to-raise-20-million-to-open-an-effort-that-could-reverse-trend-of-such-banks-closing/

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) is a law passed by the 117th United States Congress in August 2022. It "includes a first-time provision that would allow the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate prices of certain prescription drugs in Medicare and Medicaid. Savings would be generated by requiring drug manufacturers to pay a rebate for drugs whose prices increase faster than inflation under Medicare, and would create several reforms in the Medicare drug program, also known as Part D, including a cap on out-of-pocket drug spending for seniors beginning in 2025. It also extends by three years the expanded and enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credit ahead of planned premium increases set to take effect in 2023." We estimate the impact on the African American community to be significant, on the order of 8% of the total. (For a detailed analysis, email info@creativeinvest.com). The law's climate provisions consist of "subsidies for energy that

               Recently, The Economist Magazine  published an article arguing that the effort to increase the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) performance of corporations and businesses is deeply flawed. The article suggested many reasons ESG is not effective and proposed an alternative they believed would better serve the purpose of improving the environment. However, when analyzing the methods promoted by The Economist , a more effective approach to dealing with these issues is not presented.               The first point that the article makes in arguing against the effort is that ESG is too confusing. The author believes there are too many ESG objectives and that the multiplicity of commercial, business and social goals makes it difficult for firms to know what to do. The article states that ESG provides “no coherent guide” to the trade-offs that businesses must make to comply with these new standards. However, this view is misguided. The fact that ESG stand