| At best, ESG is a marketing campaign. At worst it is a scam. ESG got turned up to an 11 after the Occupy movement, when corporations realized people need to see some effort of “goodness.” So corporations took it upon themselves to define what goodness is. Now that rate each other on it. In 2008 if you said “Chase bank cares about uplifting minorities and the caring doe the environment” you would’ve been laughed out the room. In 2022 chase bank days “we care about uplifting black people” and a few people clap their hands like sea lions. ESG has done nothing effective for the environment, or for the plethora of social causes it claims to support, or the governance issues that arise in corporations acting as quasi-state entities. What ESG has done remarkably well is convince people that the corporations care about the environment and social causes. So you can leave them alone about the actual real tangible governance issues. It’s a cheap marketing campaign and everybody sees through it. The only people upholding the mirage are other Corpos. Because once you acknowledge something a simple as “Exxon cannot possibly give a shit about the environment.” Then you can start asking them about their lobbying, tax evasion, unethical practices, war profiteering, and whatever else you want. |