This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

  US businesses are cutting back on their investments in diversity and inclusion as fears of recession grow — in a shift that experts say risks reversing the progress made since George Floyd’s murder in 2020.  The number of companies in which staff reported having access to diversity programmes — such as resource groups supporting minorities — fell to 41 per cent in 2022 after two years of gains, says employer review website Glassdoor. Diversity teams have been hit by redundancy programmes in the tech industry.  Twitter, Meta and online real estate broker Redfin have all let go of members of their inclusion teams since the start of the year.  Racial equity became a top priority for corporate America after Floyd’s murder sparked a global racial reckoning. Chief executives who had seldom before spoken out on racism — including JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan — did so. Some 271 US companies pledged $67bn towards racial equity work, acco...

Nearly two years on from the Black Lives Matter protests, progress on diversity seems to have slowed In May 2020, a video of George Floyd, who was black, suffocating under the knee of former police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis ignited a national reckoning with America’s history of racism. The ensuing mass protests led corporate leaders from Apple’s Tim Cook to David Solomon of Goldman Sachs to address racism publicly, for the first time. Hundreds of wealthy individuals and companies pledged to donate huge sums to the cause, in the hope of correcting systemic injustices. A tally of public promises compiled by consultants Creative Investment Research (CIR) found that 271 US corporations have pledged $67bn towards racial equity since Floyd’s murder, with funds to be used for everything from overhauling their own internal recruiting and inclusion programmes to investing in communities of colour and donating to civil rights org...