Companies are afraid to talk about doing good
ESG, diversity, responsibility are all falling out of favor in earnings calls
Caring about diversity and corporate governance is so 2021.
As the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year, ESG — companies’ previously much-touted environmental, social, and governance efforts — has become sort of a dirty word. It looks like related terms too are feeling the freeze, as executives try to escape ire — and regulation — over the woke mind virus.
Related terms like diversity, DEI, responsibility and climate change all seem to have peaked in the last few years.
Companies have long faced criticism from the left over whether pronouncements about things like diversity, gender equity and environmentalism were just PR stunts rather than meaningful action. More recently, republicans lawmakers have criticized so-called “woke capital,” fighting to steer government investment from assets that take ESG into account.
Despite those headwinds, Bloomberg Intelligence expects global ESG assets to rise to $40 trillion by 2030, or more than a quarter of all assets under management. A survey they conducted late last year found that 85 percent of the executives and investors “reported that ESG leads to better returns, resilient portfolios and enhanced fundamental analysis.” In other words, it makes good business sense, they just might be calling it something else.
