What is ESG

[Fruitbat]

The “interests of governments” is the interest of the people. Maybe consider the state of the people and state of the climate is more important than profit. You can’t make as much money if the world is on fire and the consumers are dead.

Which is why I have deep suspicion on this whole topic as this conclusion - that the world is going to end and we’re all going to die, is a pretty manipulative premise. It’s essentially “do this or you’re dead”

This also has nothing to do with promoting people based on race or gender.

The interests of governments are not the interests of the people. I’ll cite a question here to illustrate;

In 2020 with the advent of ESG, could you name me a single political party in the anglosphere or Europe who were elected on the promise of ESG and climate action?

The majority were not elected on this premise but yet they did it anyway.

 

[Fruitbat]

They want what’s best for their shareholders, which is long term, sustainable growth.

Sustainable is a meaningless buzzword.

Growth is sustainable as it is. GDP has been increasing for thousands of years.

The net result of “sustainable” ideas tends to be:

You have less money
You have less freedom
You eat less meat
You travel less
You own fewer things
You are more highly taxed
You have less things available to buy
You are colder in winter and hotter in summer

All of this is currently being accepted, this race to serfdom, because someone has us convinced that if we don’t return to a life of feudal poverty, very bad things are going to happen.

Other mugs might buy this, I don’t

 

[Stoic]

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong or provide more insight. Especially Fruitbat

But I believe Anheiser Busch- Bud Light got them in their debacle because of influence from giant investors like Vanguard who basically use ESG as a some type of moral socialism score and invest more with companies with higher ESGs. Somewhat talking out of my ass but maybe not completely.

 

[Reincarnated]

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong or provide more insight. Especially Fruitbat

But I believe Anheiser Busch- Bud Light got them in their debacle because of influence from giant investors like Vanguard who basically use ESG as a some type of moral socialism score and invest more with companies with higher ESGs. Somewhat talking out of my ass but maybe not completely.

In this particular case, I don't think it was investor-driven. For Anheuser, it was more about a bunch of elite-MBA types in management who were completely disconnected from their customer base. I don't think there was any pressure, more so a miscalculation in trying to shift the core customer base. My personal speculation is that their long-term strategic intention was to further distinguish their cheap mass produced brands (Bud Light & Busch Light), with Bud being the white collar option, and Busch being the blue collar option.

Also ironically in recent months Vanguard has somewhat shifted away from pushing ESG-focused initiatives, especially lofty climate related goals.

 

[Murk]

What a terrifying notion to believe in.

They want what's best (for them) and want you to pay for it.

People that think Governments have our best interests at heart are fully indoctrinated into the system, clueless sheeple.

 

[member160292]

Sustainable is a meaningless buzzword.

Growth is sustainable as it is. GDP has been increasing for thousands of years.

The net result of “sustainable” ideas tends to be:

You have less money
You have less freedom
You eat less meat
You travel less
You own fewer things
You are more highly taxed
You have less things available to buy
You are colder in winter and hotter in summer

All of this is currently being accepted, this race to serfdom, because someone has us convinced that if we don’t return to a life of feudal poverty, very bad things are going to happen.

Other mugs might buy this, I don’t

Resources are not sustainable. Growth is not sustainable if no changes occur, we’re seeing that right now with the economy and interest rates.

*for the people in power.

You're very trusting of governments and secret initiatives.

If you have money, rules don’t apply. Until I get there, my opinion carries no weight so why spend the time and effort to debate government agendas?

 

[FlirtLife]

It’s a hard one as the companies that tend to go woke are the really deeply established players. You don’t find smaller players doing it because they can’t afford to.

that’s why they were deep in Twitter, and Facebook and Apple. These are essentially monopolies. These are the companies they go for. My last outfit was very well entrenched. In fact - myself and the “old guard” (mostly white males) built a book of about £50BN over about 16 years. It was really hard and painful work. Once we did all that work, they took a load of nobodies out of admin, who were exclusively minorities or women, and had us “mentor” them (our eventual replacements). The one I was mentoring was a black lady in her 50s. She was really nice but never did anywhere near my level of work. Get this - after a few weeks they kicked ME off the mentoring programme because a woman came forward who wanted to mentor and because I was male I wasn’t “the right fit for the candidate”. So even when I tried to play the game to help them I was unceremoniously told I wasn’t wanted.

These new folks are cheaper than me. That’s why they want them. We did our bit - build the book. Now they want cheap workers to service what we did and to boot there’s woke kudos points.

this is ESG right here. It was exactly like being in Deep South 50s US but roles reversed.

thankfully the company I now work for has a range of workers from different background (I mean that - we have a mix of everyone) but it’s all about merit.

Just keep fighting. As soon as this happened I immediately went job searching, left and told them why. I’m now writing most of my business back and in my opposite corner is a very poorly qualified person.

The people bringing this forward are mostly white guys scoring points

Oh, not much you can do when comparable companies adopt ESG around the same time. And for the near monopolies, there aren't any comparable companies in their industry.

Isn't it interesting they target first and second line managers? Of the FTSE 350, 94% of CEOs are male (U.S. is similar - I seem to recall you're in the UK). So the most severe diversification problem could be fixed if these CEOs would resign to improve diversification. I have an educated guess how many did this ...

On the environmental part of ESG, I recall Exxon lost board seats to an activist hedge fund. This wasn't "ESG" from the government, but rather a group using cash to buy Exxon shares and get their suggestions heard. Somehow they influenced enogh institutional investors to flip a few board seats. I don't know how that played out.

Exxon loses board seats to activist hedge fund in landmark climate vote

A tiny hedge fund dealt a major blow to Exxon Mobil Corp on Wednesday, unseating at least two board members in a bid to force the company's leadership to reckon with the risk of failing to adjust its business strategy to match global efforts to combat climate change.

www.reuters.com

 

[FlirtLife]

True, ESG-type investment strategies have existed for a long time without the ESG label. For example lots of universities and nonprofits have always had very strict social impact policies on what types of assets their endowments/trusts can invest in. These investors speak with their dollars, which is the way it ought to be.

The first mention of ESG occurs in 2004 on the following timeline.

Timeline and History of ESG Investing, Rules and Practices

Learn about ESG history and key events, trends and actions that have shaped environmental, social and governance strategies for businesses and investors.

www.techtarget.com

Agreed that voting with people's investment or buying choices is the way ESG should get decided. But what happens when a near monopoly like Facebook makes a decision to pursue ESG? There's no competing product - there's social media, or nothing.

 

[EyeBRollin]

The interests of governments are not the interests of the people. I’ll cite a question here to illustrate;

Maybe not in your country. Democratic societies beg to differ.

 

[BillyPilgrim]

Maybe not in your country. Democratic societies beg to differ.

Let us know when you see one