Woke, 3-letter alphabet soup policies like ESG and CEI — which are supposedly based on “ethical investing” and are why major American corporations are
handing out lucrative endorsements to fringe celebrities like transgender performer Dylan Mulvaney – sound wonky.
But one corporate analyst gave a succinct summation: “You can think about ESG as an attempt to sort of bring critical race theory to the private sector,” said Alison Taylor, executive director of Ethical Systems at New York University.
And like some universities and high schools where parents and administrators have
fought back against critical race theory being embedded in the curriculum, America’s big corporations aren’t necessarily as eager to sign on to LGBTQ+, climate or anti-racist policies as you might think – despite the recent rash of endorsements by Nike, Bud Light, Kate Spade of transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
The most controversial of those, by Bud Light, has
wiped $5 billion off parent company Anheuser-Busch’s value since March 31, as it deals with the fallout from conservatives over its brand endorsement from the 26-year-old transgender TikTok and Instagram star.
The Post
revealed Saturday how companies strive to receive a perfect “Corporate Equality Index” – or CEI – score from the pro-LGBTQ+ lobbying group, the Human Rights Campaign, to comply with progressive policies pushed by the world’s biggest asset funds – pushing them into branding deals like the one with Mulvaney.
But American corporations are being strong-armed into policies that they don’t always agree with by influential non-profit activist groups acting in concert with powerful fund managers, according to
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and other opponents.
They name BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street Corp., which each own up to five percent of most major US companies, as the ones doing the strong-arming, which Ramaswamy called “a protection racket.”
He singled out BlackRock CEO Larry Fink as the leader of the pressure campaign, which he says is not in the interests of companies – or the pension fund members whose savings Fink and others invest.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, among others, has been mentioned by ESG opponents as instrumental in the pressure campaigns, which they say are not in the interests of companies – or the pension fund members whose savings Fink and others invest.
Sometimes, Ramaswamy said, Fink and others have to kowtow themselves to the ultra-liberals who run pension funds in blue states like California and New York if they want to manage that money. CalPERS, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System
has more than $467 billion in funds.
ESG stands for “Environmental, Social and Governance,” which has been billed in recent years as a way to screen investments based on corporate policies and to encourage companies to act
“responsibly.”
Opponents say ESG policies are alarmingly reminiscent of the Chinese social credit score system and are paving the way for more government control and oligarchical monopolies.
“We may be veering in the same direction as China,”
Vince Dao, a conservative commentator told The Post. “The danger is that ESG and CEI scores could be leading us into a type of state-run capitalism where companies are only beholden to entities tied to the government or doing the bidding of big government.”
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