In this episode of the podcast, Alex Blumbergen and I talk about the failed concept of environmentalism, social activism, and good corporate citizenship (ESG) and why it s a complete waste of money.
00:00:26.700But it was claiming companies should set aside a profit focus.
00:00:30.140And if they just took on enough environmental and social justice work, it would be beneficial to the public and to the companies themselves.
00:00:37.200Now, the concept is utter pie-in-the-sky bunk.
00:00:40.000And despite nearly two decades of effort on this crap, it's finally failed.
00:00:44.840I mean, corporations only exist for one thing, and that's to make a return for the shareholders.
00:00:49.400They're not charities, nor should they be expected to be.
00:00:51.680I mean, while good corporate citizenship can aid with a company's public reputation and help build brand loyalty, ESG goes well beyond that with its demands on corporations.
00:01:01.800Profit is supposed to be considered a secondary goal to ESG.
00:01:05.860Now, the ESG movement, I mean, is rather insidious and compelling.
00:01:10.080Rather than trying to directly convince companies to embrace woke policies that run counters to the company's own objectives,
00:01:16.940they would target instead things like large asset management companies and get them to push the ESG.
00:01:22.120Basically saying, don't invest in it unless they have a high ESG score.
00:01:25.800Now, BlackRock is a company you've probably heard of now and then, and it was a leader in pushing ESG upon companies.
00:01:31.700It was kind of thought that even if consumers don't really care about ESG targets, the companies would embrace ESG policies if they were strangled from incoming investment by these management, you know, companies.
00:01:43.880BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, the name sort of works, doesn't it, spearheaded such efforts.
00:01:49.440Now, Fink now is distancing himself from the entire ESG movement.
00:01:52.060He's, whoa, whoa, okay, okay, no, that's enough of that.
00:01:55.480Yeah, but he did a lot of damage on the way up.
00:01:57.000Because shareholders will only put up with so much.
00:01:59.800They want a return on any investments they entrusted to these asset managers,
00:02:03.720and they couldn't care less if the company has unisex washrooms or sets its emission targets above and beyond those required by legislation.
00:02:11.440They're demanding investments in profitable companies rather than woke ones.
00:02:18.140Retailers, I mean, they can't pay the insane living wages demands being made by woke people while maintaining competitive pricing, of course,
00:02:26.020because then they scream about the inflation when the costs go up.
00:02:28.700And then, of course, adding environmental regulations doesn't win any government love,
00:02:32.480because the governments just keep piling on new regulations on top of the old ones.
00:02:36.440Appeasing the woke in the name of ESG has only managed to make profits smaller.
00:02:40.900Now, some ESG-inspired idiocy will go down in business history,
00:02:44.400such as the Budweiser debacle with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney.
00:02:47.580I mean, even a first-year marketing student should have seen the consequences coming
00:02:51.840when Budweiser decided to take on the flamboyant Mulvaney as a brand ambassador.
00:02:57.180Budweiser had over a century of carefully cultivated market development under its belt.
00:03:02.260The brand loyalty for Budweiser was the envy of the very competitive beer industry,
00:03:07.040and it was shattered by this bizarre choice to go down the trans activist rabbit hole.
00:03:11.280How could somebody have thought for a moment that a market demographic made up
00:03:15.440predominantly of cowboys and blue-collar workers would want their favorite beer
00:03:18.300associated with a colorful trans activist?
00:03:21.120It's not a question of tolerance. It's just knowing your market.
00:03:24.840The thing is, the luminary who came up with this idea to bring Mulvaney on as a brand ambassador