A global asset management company managing portfolio funds totaling more than nine hundred billion dollars is now bribing its employees to make investment decisions that subordinate profit maximization to advancing environmental, social goals and governance (ESG).
Thursday, AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) announced that it will now offer financial incentives to its approximately four hundred senior executives based on the reallocation of portfolio fund investments to achieve ESG objectives:
“As part of its commitment to become net zero as a company and investor by 2050 to help the transition to a more sustainable world, AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) now includes ESG objectives in the remuneration of its senior executives.”
The remuneration policy is mainly focused on portfolio decarbonization objectives.
AXA IM’s ESG incentive compensation packages include financial rewards for reaching the client portfolio, as well as internal decarbonization targets by 2025:
- 75% of deferred compensation is linked to reducing the carbon intensity of the company’s financial and real estate portfolios.
- 25% of the ESG financial incentive is based on AXA IM’s objective of reducing its operational CO2 footprint by 26%.
AXA IM’s financial incentives aim to achieve three ESG objectives by 2025:
- 25% reduction in the carbon intensity of the corporate portfolios of its asset managers.
- 50% of the assets under management of the real estate portfolio aligned with the projections of the Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor of the European Union.
- 26% reduction in the operational CO2 footprint of AXA IM corporation.
By selling their pension and retirement funds to asset managers who practice ESG, investors risk sacrifice growth of their portfolios – so that investment firms can achieve ideological ESG objectives.
As 2022 drew to a close, the 10 largest environmental, social and governance (ESG) funds left investors with double-digit percentage losses in the value of their portfolios, Bloomberg analysis reveals.
What else, The report finds that eight of the ten largest ESG funds, measured by assets, performed worse than the S&P 500.
Asset managers have a fiduciary responsibility to make investment decisions based solely on the objectives and best interests of their clients – but, the AXA IM website says this also includes achieving the company’s own climate goals.
“We believe our fiduciary duty goes beyond delivering returns to our clients. We believe it is also about investing responsibly, driving climate action and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the world we live in,” AXA IM website declared.
AXA IM says it also uses the money it invests to pressure companies in need of capital to capitulate to its ESG ideology:
“How we act on our beliefs and allocate capital has the power to influence the behavior of investee companies.”
The practice, in which financial institutions limit their investments to companies aligned with specific left-leaning environmental and social causes, was highlighted in December during a Texas Senate State Affairs Committee hearing.
There, the founder and executive director of Brigham Minerals, Bud Brigham provided testimony alleging that a bank tried to use his loan application as leverage to coerce him into publicly expressing support for ESG ideology.
The company’s website also calls on all other asset managers to become ESG activists:
“By working autonomously and championing our individual progress on the path to Net Zero, we as asset managers are not doing justice to the scale of the challenge we face.”
“By joining our efforts and our influence, we have the power to effect tangible change, working with other key players in the New Zealand ecosystem. We call on all asset managers to consider three opportunities for the do: with customers, with regulators and as an industry.”
AXA IM’s website also reports that the company has “adopted the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a global guide to test the credibility, relevance, scale of impact and contributions of our investments. Our strategy currently supports 13 of the 17 UN SDGs.
Editor’s note: This piece has been reprinted with permission and was the first published on CNSNews.com