What Shakespeare can teach climate-focused investors

When CEOs talk about ESG performance, pay attention to how they say it.

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Tragedy and comedy masks, Scarbrough Hotel, Leeds, UK. Photo: Tim Green/Wikimedia.

(Mark Hulbert, an author and longtime investment columnist, is the founder of the Hulbert Financial Digest; his Hulbert Ratings audits investment newsletter returns.)

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Callaway Climate Insights) — You can learn a lot about a company’s ESG performance by paying attention to the tone its CEO uses when describing the firm’s commitment to environmental, social and governance goals.

Paying attention to tone is hardly revolutionary, of course. Psychologists, for one, learn as much or more from their clients by analyzing how they say something rather than what they say. A just-completed study suggests that climate-friendly investors would do well to become more psychologically astute.