No, Arms Dealers Don’t Count as “Environmentally and Socially Responsible” Investments
Arms industries across Europe and North America are trying to get credentialed as “ESG”-friendly options for environmentally and socially conscious investors. That’s absurd. As long as their products are used to perpetuate war, they will remain sin stocks.
M1A2 Abrams tanks in Nowa Deba, Poland, on April 12 2023. (Artur Widak / NurPhoto / Getty Images)
Military sectors are ramping up efforts to “green” warfare. To support the rebranding of the military as a “driver of climate action,” arms industries from Europe to North America are demanding recognition as ESG-friendly sustainable investment options. That is: environmentally and socially responsible businesses. Arms industries bring security, we are told. And security is a precondition for “any sustainability.”
What hides in this statement? What is lost as we allow military actors to monopolize the meaning of a sustainable future? Unless we want to see the real definitions of both security and sustainable practices silenced — those needed to actually address climate and social crises — military investments must remain “sin stocks.”
Monetizing and Militarizing Sustainability
We live in a time of compounding environmental and social crises, from climate change to armed conflict to systemic human rights violations. As a result, financial investments in arms — the means of death and destruction exacerbating such crises — have acquired an increasingly bad aftertaste for investors with a concern for environmental and social sustainability. At present, this trend is facing a dangerous U-turn as weapons lobbies are putting minds, money, and manpower to co-opting sustainability in theory and practice.
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