ESG Policy in Time of War
Time to urgently apply ESG policy to stop European industry's support for Putin's war
Many (re-)insurance companies have environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies which encourage their insureds to ‘do the right thing’ in terms of phasing out fossil fuel use to combat climate change.
Yet as I write, much of Europe continues to fund Putin’s war on Ukraine’s population by carrying on using Putin-gas and Putin-oil plus some Putin-coal.
Every day the war continues in Ukraine, Ukrainian civilian men as well as women and children are being killed and maimed by deliberate Russian targeting of civilian areas in towns and cities. Every day the war is prolonged by European money paid to Putin, there will be more casualties and more atrocities like we’ve seen in Bucha.
If European governments are too spineless to make the decision to stop using Russian energy, I think it is past time for insurers and re-insurers to urgently pivot their ESG policies to stop insuring all European industries who use Russian fossil fuels.
I too think we should be doing all we can to support Ukraine and to hobble Putin. I think it was a former Russian central banker who was on Newsnight recently saying that Russia has the money (essentially a call on domestic resources) to keep re-arming and fighting for several weeks or months, even if all purchases of Russian fossil fuels ceased immediately.
Bucha atrocities.....
C'mon Man
We've seen them all before
All staged (Syria/Iraq/Libya)
Why should this be any different ?