Climate Change Weekly #436: Woke Investing Gets Well-Deserved Pushback

The Heartland Institute has been reporting on and critiquing woke corporate elites and government regulators for pushing a “Great Reset” on the U.S. and world economies. The radical idea behind the Great Reset is to make the pursuit of progressive political causes the primary goal of companies and investors. These include fighting climate change and indoctrinating children into Critical Race Theory.

The Heartland Institute has written extensively and testified about the dangers of government agencies mandating banks, companies, and portfolio funds adopt and report on Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards. Heartland has also provided detailed critiques of efforts by a cabal of large, multinational banks and gigantic financial companies to force every business to adopt ESG goals. The woke, billionaire corporate elites who run these corporations do this by threatening to withdraw banking or financial services or by applying pressure through their control over large amounts of a company’s stock.

In a joint effort with likeminded nonprofit organizations, The Heartland Institute’s government relations professionals have pushed back against this by working with legislators in various states to shape and adopt model legislation blocking use of ESG scoring in deciding whether to offer banking and investment services. These efforts have borne fruit. Some states have successfully enacted legislation challenging woke investing. Lawmakers in other states have introduced bills and given hearings at which Heartland staff have testified, though no votes were taken before the legislative clock ran out. The legislative sponsors have committed to reintroducing these bills early in the next session.

Moving to the federal level, 16 states’ governors recently sent a letter to President Joe Biden requesting he withdraw the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) proposal that would force publicly traded companies to account for and share data on so-called climate change risks and greenhouse gas emissions for themselves and the companies in their supply chains. The governors argue the proposal is unjustified, is outside the SEC’s authority, would harm U.S. business competitiveness, and would reduce returns to investors, including already woefully underfunded public pension funds.

In addition, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and seven other members of the U.S. House of Representatives have offered a bill to bar the federal Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) from investing U.S. taxpayer dollars in ESG funds. The No ESG at TSP Act would prohibit the TSP from allowing participants to invest their retirement savings in funds that make investment decisions based on environmental, social, governance, or other political criteria. The pursuit of profits to maximize fund returns, not progressive political goals, should be the focus of federal savings plans, Roy and his colleagues argue.

Though our efforts to derail the woke/Great Reset/ESG/Green New Deal train initially took place under the radar, our successes have recently captured the attention of progressive political and economic elites and their lapdogs in the corporate media. Multiple news outlets such as the Associated Press and The New York Times have published stories in recent weeks and months conveying the same simple but misleading narrative: right-wing groups and politicians are undermining the right of businesses to fight climate change and racial and sexual inequity, and in so doing they are harming American investors, the economy, and the environment, the argument goes.

In a story titled “GOP directs culture war fury toward green investing trend,” AP described the situation as follows:

Republicans are coming out swinging against Wall Street’s growing efforts to consider factors like long-term environmental risk in investment decisions, the latest indication that the GOP is willing to damage its relationship with big business to score culture war points.

Many are targeting a concept known as ESG—which stands for environmental, social and governance—a sustainable investment trend sweeping the financial world. Red state officials deride it as politically correct and woke and are trying to stop investors who contract with states from adopting it on any level. …

In statehouses, anti-green investing efforts are backed by conservative groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Heartland Institute, a think-tank skeptical of scientific consensus on human-caused climate change that has backed bills that either divest state funds from financial institutions that use ESG or forbid them from using it to score businesses or individuals.

The description of this “investment trend” as “sustainable” is false. Data show businesses guided by the profit motive and diversified investment portfolios generally produce higher returns and do better competitively than businesses driven by political concerns. That includes portfolios that have fossil fuel stocks. Corporations that concentrate on fighting climate change, promoting diversity or amorphous equity, or advancing racial or sexual politics do less well than those that focus on maximizing profits by producing goods and services consumers desire. By hiding this, mainstream media outlets are demonstrating the facts don’t matter to them as long as they are acting “virtuously”: deceiving people in the service of the greater good, defined as progressive leftism.

The fight The Heartland Institute, lawmakers, and other groups are engaged in is not to prevent anybody from making investment decisions based on political reasons. They can already do so, as the proliferation of socially responsible investment funds attests. What we are trying to do is to prevent big government, big banks, and big investment houses from using their political and economic clout to force everyone to support the same political causes or to place liberal politics above maximizing business returns and the fiscal soundness of retirement funds. The AP story quoted one Republican  on what he is fighting for in the battle against forced ESG scoring:

“‘I don’t think we’re the party of big business anymore,” West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore said, according to AP. “We’re the party of people—more specifically, we’re the party of working people. And the problem that we have is with big banks and corporations right now trying to dictate how we’re going to live our lives.”

That sort of turns the common perception of the political parties on its head, doesn’t it? In the woke- corporatism war, Republicans, not Democrats, are the party of the little guy and gal, so to speak, and Democrats, not Republicans, are the party of big business bullies.

Whether it is because our message is having some success or because American investors simply understand the stakes, a recent survey shows most investors agree with The Heartland Institute’s view that companies should be pursuing profits, not political goals. A story in The Daily Caller reports on the responses in a recent survey:

American investors—by an overwhelming margin—want companies they invest in to stop preaching and pursue profits, and they want no part of the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) movement, an exclusive Daily Wire/Echelon Insights poll reveals.

The poll of over 1,000 investors … showed that Americans want companies they invest in to seek profits instead of promoting political agendas outside of companies’ missions. While 29% of respondents agreed it is a “good thing” for companies to leverage their financial power for political or social means supported by executives, 58%—twice as many—said it is a “bad thing.”

“The data are clear: everyday investors want companies to focus on creating shareholder value by delivering excellent products and services to their customers, not on advancing social or political agendas,” said entrepreneur and former pharmaceutical executive Vivek Ramaswamy, … who recently launched an asset management firm meant to compete with BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street with an “excellence capitalism” approach.

“Depoliticizing corporate America should not be a left wing or right wing issue,” said Ramaswamy. “It has nothing to do with partisan politics. An apolitical private sector is a requirement for an otherwise divided country to be able to come together. It’s a sort of sanctuary away from politics. Once we lose that, it’s the beginning of the end of the American experiment.”

These are exciting and dangerous times for the U.S. and global economies. It is important to remain vigilant and well-informed. The more one learns about the ESG/Great Reset movement, the better one understands the danger it poses  and why we must fight it. I encourage our readers to join in the fight by supporting The Heartland Institute’s efforts. We are fighting for your free choice in the marketplace and a rescue of the U.S. economy.

SOURCES: Stopping Socialism; Climate Change Weekly; Climate Change Weekly; The Heartland Institute; Stopping ESG; The New York Times; The Daily Wire; The Raleigh News & Observer; Daily Caller; Rep. Chip Roy