Permanent Fund gets same paid advice from ESG opponent for second year in a row

John D. Skjervem, the chief investment officer of Utah Retirement Systems, is an outspoken opponent of ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) policies and fossil fuel divestment. His is a popular position in Utah politics where complaints about ESG policies are commonplace. His is also a popular position in Alaska politics.

Skjervem is a member of the investment advisory board of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation trustees, a position that pays $1,000 a month as a retainer and $1,000 a day for attending APFC meetings. Ten to 15 hours a month is the workload.

No doubt this is a small part of Skjervem’s income.

The job requires an annual report on some topic linked to current markets or specific board requests.

For the second straight year, Skjervem denounced ESG and fossil-fuel divestment in the presentation prepared for the Alaska Permanent Fund trustees annual meeting. Skjervem is recycling many of the same points he made to the trustees a year ago under his contract.

“Many on the Left are demanding the divestment of fossil-fuel-related assets from institutional investment portfolios. While we appreciate the sincerity of their concerns, the divestment impulse is a naïve, politically expedient, and completely wrongheaded reaction to the world’s most complex problem. Divestment ignores how capital markets work and thus is hopelessly flawed as an effective strategy for combating climate change,” Skjervem said in an opinion column that he and Robert G. Eccles published last week.

The Permanent Fund should have asked Skjervem for a report that does not rehash what he said last year.

This is from his presentation a year ago to the annual meeting:

This slide is from his 2022 report:

This is a slide from his 2023 report:

This slide is from his 2022 report:

This is a slide from his 2023 report:

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