ESG Is Dead, Too

Link here. 

Inside the above tweet / link, is the link: ESG's Russia test -- trial by fire crash and burn?

A keeper.

It begins: 

My views on ESG are not a secret.

I believe that ESG is, at its core, a feel-good scam that is enriching consultants, measurement services and fund managers, while doing close to nothing for the businesses and investors it claims to help, and even less for society. That judgment may be harsh, but as the Russian hostilities in Ukraine shake up markets, the weakest links in the ESG chain are being exposed, and as the same old rationalizations and excuses get rolled out, I believe that a moment of reckoning is arriving for the concept. 

If you remain a true believer, I will leave it up to you to decide how much damage has been done to ESG, and what comes next.

What I love most! The author actually proposes "what comes next":

So, what will the next big thing be? 

I don't know for sure, but I am willing to make a guess, since so many ESG experts and advocates have slipped into already using it as an alternative. 

It is "sustainability", a word that can mean whatever you want it to mean. In its most benign form, I believe that it is just another word for "long term," though the only benefit of replacing one set of words with another is that it offers a chance for those using the new and updated word to state the obvious, claim the outrageous and charge the absurd. 

In its more malignant form, it becomes a way to try to keep corporations alive forever, a dreadful idea, where zombie and walking dead companies suck up capital and resources, and drag the rest of us down into the abyss with them. 

The writer's conclusion:

When I first wrote about ESG two years ago, I did so because I was skeptical of the unquestioning belief that people had in its success. I initially believed that it was a flawed concept that needed fixing , but after two years of interactions with people who claim to know the concept really well, but don't seem to be capable of making solid cases for it, and witnessing its takeover by well heeled entities with agendas, I am convinced that there will soon be room for only two types of people in the ESG space. 

The first will be the useful idiots, well meaning individuals who believe that they are advancing the cause of goodness, as they toil in the trenches of ESG measurement services, ESG arms of consulting firms and ESG investment funds. The second will be the feckless knaves, who know fully well the void behind the concept, but see an opportunity to make money. I know that those are not edifying choices, but I don't see any good ones, other than leaving the space completely. Good luck!