Links tagged “esg”

Friedman: "Natural gas and coal prices in Europe and Asia just hit their highest levels on record, oil prices in America hit a seven-year high and U.S. gasoline prices are up $1 a gallon from last year. If this winter is as bad as some experts predict — with some in the poor and middle classes unable to heat their homes —I fear we’ll see a populist backlash to the whole climate/green movement. You can already smell that coming in Britain."

Alex Epstein: "ESG was a movement cooked up at the UN--not exactly a leading expert in profitable investment--to impose moral and political agendas, largely left-wing ones, on institutions that would not adopt them if left to their own devices." - "The number one practical meaning of ESG today is: divest from fossil fuels in every way possible, and associate yourself with "renewable" solar and wind in every way possible."

The preposterous financial pretense of "ESG investing" is that the promoters of it have so accurately identified universal norms of long-term value creation--Environmental norms, Social norms, and Governance norms--that imposing those norms on every company is justified.Divesting from fossil fuels is immoral because:

1. The world needs much more energy.
2. Fossil fuels are the only way to provide most of that energy for the foreseeable future.
3. Any problems associated with CO2 pale in comparison to problems of energy deprivation.ESG defunding fossil fuel projects in the poorest parts of the world will mean: more babies die for lack of incubators and other medical equipment, more deaths from lack of water treatment plants and modern sanitation, more deaths from lack of heating and air-conditioning.

Every leading ESG institution should be called out for their genocidal policies toward the poorest parts of the world. They should be shamed for placing their own virtue-signaling above billions of actual human lives.

The new proposal for a separate energy and carbon audit — distinct from the financial audit and conducted by a different professional body — not only imposes further costs on businesses, but also creates a green profession focused on monitoring the requirements of the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting Regulations. Since these are supported by criminal sanctions this is sinister and unwelcome development.

Beck: "I want to invest in this company, it's a gun company oh they've got an ESG score of two. Well I don't care because I believe that's going to go up. But it doesn't matter. You're not doing it for that anymore you're not doing it to make money, you're doing it for the overall good of society this is the end of capitalism." ... "It doesn't matter that these companies might be worth more we think the investment should go to these companies because they're socially woke. When that happens, the stock market means nothing,  nothing because it is basically at the barrel of a gun the government and the big businesses have decided who's going to get the money."

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Also see: Benjamin Zycher on ESG (Environmental, Social, & Governance Responsibility): ‘A blatant effort to use private-sector resources for ideological purposes’