Abstract
This Article documents various government actions driving the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) movement to offer perspective on the debate regarding whether markets or governments propel ESG. These include mandating an energy transition; promulgating laws, rules, and directives compelling ESG reporting; and providing generous tax incentives and financial subsidies. We document the government push for ESG in the United States, Europe, and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, and by international financial institutions. We do not deny that many investors across the globe are interested in ESG as opposed to only private returns. However, the breadth and depth of government action are clearly pushing more investors into ESG. We distinguish between market pull and government push as drivers of the ESG boom by documenting the laws, regulations, mandates, tax credits, and subsidies enacted by governments across North America and Europe. We do not attempt to resolve causality between investor sentiment and government action; our catalog may prove useful in a future attempt to address, statistically, causality. The extensive breadth and depth of government laws and rules suggest that government push is perhaps the more likely driver of the boom.
Recommended Citation
Mendenhall, Allen and Sutter, Daniel,
ESG INVESTING: GOVERNMENT PUSH OR MARKET PULL?,
22 Santa Clara J. Int'l L.
75
(2024).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/scujil/vol22/iss2/2
