From Alan Murray in Fortune: Here’s where the anti-ESG effort is failing: climate change. Oh, sure, oil companies have increased their investment and production in fossil fuels—a natural and welcome response to the war in Ukraine and the subsequent rise in fuel prices. But most large companies are holding firm in their commitments to ambitious net zero…
Tag: esg
Time to Short the “Anti-Woke”
Fortune has a terrific piece by Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian on the failure (in the purely financial sense) of the anti-woke, anti-ESG companies. It is well worth a careful read of the entire piece, but here are some highlights: Grandstanding political ideologues are using opportunistic attacks on iconic U.S. enterprises to showcase their…
Douglas Chia on ESG and Anti-ESG
Douglas Chia is one of the most respected authorities on corporate governance and we are honored to be able to share his recent speech, the most insightful discussion we have seen of the challenges to ESG.. Anti-ESG: A War On Two Fronts By Douglas K. Chia, President, Soundboard Governance LLC; Senior Fellow, Rutgers Center for…
WSJ is Shocked, Shocked! To Find Capitalism Happening
Entities that love to rhapsodize about the purity of the free market are often aghast when markets deliver a response they don’t like. Here we have the Wall Street Journal displaying its bias with the slanted language in the headline for this story: “Shareholder Activists Drag Companies Into U.S. Culture Wars.” Let us point out…
This is What Regulatory Risk Means
ISS has a new report on likely regulations that will affect risk assessment for investors. Regulators are increasing their scrutiny of corporate supply chains, pressing companies to take more responsibility for modern slavery, human rights abuses and environmental harm caused along their entire value chain. While some national rules impose hefty fines for non-compliance, others…
Another Useless Letter from State GOP Politicians
Following on the wildly distorted, inaccurate attack on ESG in a letter from Republican Attorneys General to Larry Fink at Blackrock (our suggested response is here, Fink’s actual response is here, and the rebuttal from the Democratic Attorneys General is here), we now have a letter from Republican state treasurers that is just as slanted…
We Give an F to The WSJ’s Grades for “Woke” Proxy Votes
The Wall Street Journal’s hysterical pearl-clutching about ESG is getting to the point of derangement. The one thing we thought we could count on them for was, well, counting, but real math would not make their point, so they’re touting a disgracefully skewed report. The bias is evident in the Journal’s language. “Strangling” fossil fuels?…
When DeSantis Says “Anti-Woke” He Means “Diverting Pension Funds to Lower-Returns Donors”
Florida governor and Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has been crusading against “woke” investments for allegedly threatening his state employees’ retirement funds. But the most imminent threat to Florida public employees’ retirement dollars appears to be the massive state pension investments that have gone to some of the Republican Party’s Wall Street donors under DeSantis’…
CEOs Split on ESG in Fortune Poll
Fortune Magazine surveyed CEOs about ESG and the responses were split between those who thought it was important and those who thought it was overblown. These were the questions: As you know, there has been significant political pushback against ESG and “woke” capitalism in the past year. Which of the following statements comes closest to…
NYC Pension Fund Sued for Risk Assessment of Fossil Fuel Companies
Justice Antonin Scalia’s son, Eugene, who served as President Trump’s Secretary of Labor, is one of the lawyers from Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher who have filed a lawsuit against the NY City pension fund on behalf of a fake front group called Americans for Fair Treatment (remember our rule that the more patriotic and bland…
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