The world’s leading rater of green credentials is rewarding some of Wall Street’s biggest banks even though they continue to lend billions of dollars to fossil-fuel companies. Those credentials come in the form of upgrades from MSCI Inc., which ranks corporations globally on environmental, social and governance criteria. In the past two years, Wells Fargo & Co. , Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley were among banks that got an ESG headline-rating upgrade for environmental reasons, even though the three banks arranged a combined $74 billion of loans for fossil-fuel companies. Climate change, racial inequality and the growing wealth gap have created huge demand for ESG data on global companies. Adjustments to ESG ratings, which investors use to trade shares in a booming market for sustainable investing, can affect the flows of money invested in a company’s stock. Some $2.7 trillion now sits in sustainable funds, more […]