1/3 One jaw-dropping sub-plot of the Boohoo saga: how did so much ethical investment money end up in the company? ASI, for e.g., ran a fund specifically to invest in companies with “good employment opportunities and practices”. Its biggest holding? Boohoo. https://www.ft.com/content/48e02694-a54c-4cec-9af6-ada8b4955e20

2/3 MSCI's ESG rating agency (which apparently uses AI & thousands of data points to assess companies' ESG risks) gave Boohoo an "AA" score as recently as June, with 8.4/10 for "supply chain labour standards", well above the industry average.

3/3 Sustainable fund managers have been relying too much on pseudo-scientific scoring systems & whatever the companies tell them. Some suggestions for how else to spot a bad employer (from someone who does it for a living!)