Keeping ESG investment performance in perspective After 12-month returns in the triple digits, investors got a wake-up call when ESG funds came crashing back down to earth. April 22, 2021 4 MINS It would be difficult to miss the surging popularity of ESG investing, especially if you’re a financial journalist fielding press releases during the week of the 51 st annual Earth Day celebration. But beyond the pitches for interviews with executives and politicians who are saving the planet by growing their own tomatoes and supporting laws that make polluting more illegal than it already is, there is the investing angle. Allowing for the environmental, social and governance nomenclature corn maze that detours toward sustainable, responsible, impact and things baked by grandma, it is obvious the general category is growing like organic mushrooms on the dark side of a decaying log in the woods of Maine.