NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

At Goldman Sachs Group Inc., there’s an ESG filter that tells investors to buy coal giant Glencore Plc, and avoid Big Tech staples Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.

Most Read from Bloomberg

• How Americans Voted Their Way Into a Housing Crisis

• After a Record Hot Summer, Pressure Grows for A/C Mandates

• Chicago Halts Hiring as Deficit Tops $1 Billion Through 2025

• For Tenants, AI-Powered Screening Can Be a New Barrier to Housing

• UC Berkeley Gives Transfer Students a Purpose-Built Home on Campus

The filter is designed to pick stocks based on how much attention companies pay to recycling, waste management and the re-use of materials and products. The better they do, the higher they score on a metric called circularity. The approach, the latest example of the huge portfolio variations that investors face depending on the ESG screen they use, has shown it can beat the wider market over time, according to Goldman.

Photo courtesy of Erlend Ekseth.