Despite the transparent prevarications of the most powerful proponents of current ESG, those positions are entirely and deeply partisan. As has been noted on these pages before, Larry Fink followed up his assertions that ESG and stakeholder capitalism are neither “partisan” nor “woke” by establishing as his two biggest ESG goals “equity” – which means active illegal discrimination to achieve artificial equalities of outcome – and decarbonization on political schedules that will permit him and his buddies to continue to fly around the world in private jets while the rest of us are too crippled by costly and unreliable energy to be able to continue to live normal modern lives. Not incidentally, those two goals are also the two “whole of government” goals of the present administration, which is of course very partisan indeed.
So, yeah, there can be no doubt: ESG, however it is framed by its supporters, is not an effort to achieve any sort of objective sustainability, or to advance all stakeholders, or to improve society in broadly agreed ways. It’s just pushing a hard-left agenda that mirrors pretty exactly the goals of leftist professors and “progressive” politicians, while having no time whatever for any other interests.
It may be worthwhile, then, to consider what a genuinely neutral, nonpartisan ESG might look like, and how it would have to be constructed. This will reveal whether such a project is possible: whether bringing ESG within corporate executives’ legal fiduciary duties can be managed under any circumstances. It will also highlight just how huge is the gap between current, duty-breaching partisan ESG efforts and a neutral and honest variety.
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