Dive Brief:

• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged a unit of BNY Mellon with misstating how it applied environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria when making investment decisions for some of its mutual funds.
• The SEC said Monday that BNY Mellon Investment Adviser (BNYMIA) incorrectly said that it had subjected all investments in the mutual funds to an ESG quality review. BNYMIA agreed to pay a $1.5 million fine.
• “We take our regulatory and compliance responsibilities seriously and have updated our materials as part of our commitment to ensuring our communications to investors are precise and complete,” a BNYMIA spokesperson said in a statement.

Dive Insight:

The SEC, citing its mandate to protect investors, has pledged to crack down on companies involved in finance and other sectors that overstate their commitment to sustainability.

So-called greenwashing — or exaggerating efforts to limit harm to the environment — is rife, with nearly three out of five executives (58%) saying their companies engage in such deception, according to a global survey sponsored by Google Cloud.

Thirty-five percent of U.S. executives, and 29% worldwide, agree with the phrase, “my company treats sustainability like a PR stunt,” according to the survey by Harris Poll of 1,491 CFOs and other executives in the C-suite or VP level across 14 markets.

Targeting such deception, the SEC plans to enact “consistent, comparable and decision-useful” standards for disclosure on...

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