JUST US.
This may be the first honest act in the history of Goldman Sachs. Of course, the façade is a complete fraud and Goldman will be shorting what they recommend to their customers as soon as they can do so without attracting undue attention.

I think this article wrongly dismisses an attempt to solve the real problem of separation of owners and businesses. The ability to form corporations where the owners aren't involved in management and don't share liability is a powerful way to fund good ideas. But it also creates structures where businesses do things their owners disagree with. Management may even be pressured to do things they don't want to do because their boards are looking to analysts' estimates. They know mutual funds and ETF have an obligation protect the interest of investors who fund them, and they will punish stocks that are doing something bad for near-term earnings.

Many retail investors like the ability to invest in a broad swath of companies with no liability, but they wish fund managers and corporate boards would act in a way they would act if their wealth were all in a local business they owned and controlled. If they owned one shop, they wouldn't think of trashing the environment, cheating vendors/employees, maintaining dangerous working conditions, etc. They wish their investment in public companies through ETFs and mutual funds were managed the same way. Mutual funds (e.g. Domini) tried to provide us that in the 90s, and now it's ETFs with "crowdsourced" "blueprints for business behavior"
(whatever that exactly means). The crowdsourcing makes some sense. The investor is spreading his wealth among hundreds of equities and bond via the ETF; maybe the ETF should spread how it votes its proxies and which investments it owns among the fund's thousands of investors.

I do not know if this is the answer. I actually think it isn't. I held some so-called socially conscious funds when I was getting started twenty years ago, and I found it didn't work because their values didn't necessarily align with mine. I don't mind investing in "immoral" things like gambling, sex trade, drugs, etc in a legal way that provides customers what they want. Also, sometimes the socially conscious funds are highly correlated to major indicies. They just filter out stocks that represent a few percent of the portfolio, and you end up with an ordinary large cap fund with a higher expense ratio.

So I completely get the suspicion of any particular fund, but I do not agree at all with dismissing the idea of a fund that tries to operate according to investors' values. It actually seems like a huge problem of our time. Many people who think they don't like capitalism just don't like the means of production being separate from the owners. Seeing a problem and trying to fix it isn't being sanctimonious. It's what makes capitalism work. Good for Goldman Sachs for attempting to do something about this problem.

There are always a number of people who will understand the value of a free market and those who will try to control it for their own benefit. Whenever control is introduced it means the use of violence to dictate outcome rather than allowing free exchange which will benefit more participants. I doubt if Goldman Sachs leadership will decide their business model for the past 100+ years is to be put aside, they have discovered a crowd source to exploit and will do so. Those who would be free compared to the collective have been more competitive and innovative and vastly outnumbered by the collective. Consequently remaining free always requires the ability to move quickly and remain unobserved. Once the collective notices the individuals their libertines are in jeopardy.

Welcome to The Matrix.

Environmental, social and Governance.
Each of these words are scary enough in today's culture...put them together?...Run Like Hell!