Keith Breslauer, managing director of Patron Capital, says that we need to remember that there is more to ESG than the environmental factor, important as it may be. Social issues — the “S” of ESG — have also escalated throughout the pandemic and in the years preceding it.
The “S” has rarely been more important, and it is time that institutional investors approached it with the same appetite as they do the “E”.
There is no denying that COVID-19 exacerbated underlying societal issues, putting the difference between higher-paid workers with the option of remote working in stark contrast with lower-paid workers who might not have had that option and who often worked at the coalface of the pandemic as key workers or in a sector that was suspended, such as hospitality.
A survey of 37 countries indicates that three in four households suffered declining income since the start of the pandemic, with 82 percent of poorer households affected.
