The former head of the board of governors at the world’s largest pension fund said he sees signs of a "bubble” in environmental, social and governance investing, and said the Japanese fund needs to consider how much ESG assets contribute to returns.
Eiji Hirano, who was chairman of the board of governors of Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund from 2017 until earlier this year, presided over a tumultuous period for the fund as it became a world leader in ESG investments. The fund now needs to reassess its approach to ESG, he said.
"The GPIF needs to go back to its roots, and think about how to analyze if ESG is really profitable, as well as how to evaluate and standardize ESG,” he said in an interview. "It’s a little like an ESG bubble right now, and we should evaluate both the good and the bad.”