There are three kinds of retail investors who buy shares into these companies, said Whelan, who’s also the founding director of the NYU’s Center for Sustainable Business. One bucket includes those who know what they’re getting into. The second is made up of folks who invest based on their ideologies and not on potential returns.

“There’s probably a third category who does believe they’re going to get good returns out of it for ideological reasons, I guess, and they may not be sophisticated investors,” Whelan said. “They’re most likely going to be in for a surprise.

Tensie Whelan, Founding Director of CSB, was quoted in a Bloomberg Law article about the poor market performance of anti-ESG startups. Read the full article at Bloomberg Law here.