Outside the Box: The Trump administration wants to discourage your 401(k) from including ESG investment options

Two proposed rulemakings from the Labor Department in the past eight weeks would largely gut sustainable investing options and strategies in retirement plans. These proposals would reverse the Labor Department’s 2015 and 2016 guidance while ignoring the growing consensus among academics, retirement plan fiduciaries and professional money managers that responsible companies are likely to outperform over the long haul.

The first measure, “Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments,” now in the late stages of the approval…