Whether to prioritize the environment or the economy splits American opinion

Look up environmental social governance (ESG). It is a relatively new initiative helping to measure companies environmental and social pact.

ESG is the most cynically masturbatory concept ever, but one that allows corporations to accomplish a couple of goals while doing nothing for the environment.

  1. Financial shenanigans - the carbon credits trading market is likely to be another money laundering scheme, where you can decide how much profit you need to avoid paying taxes on in a given year by purchasing extra carbon credits and deducting them, and then in a future year, when you need to offset some losses, you can sell them back. (All that is assuming, of course, that your carbon offset bank doesn't catch on fire. LOL.)
  2. Easy way to hire more "diverse" candidates. It's sometimes tricky to find enough "diverse" quants or coders, but there's no shortage of environmental studies or law school grads, so you can put them in the ESG division, and continue the mission critical areas of your business with the same mostly White/Asian dudes you've had the whole time.
  3. Governance? Yeah, that's what we used to call lobbying, but now that it has Environmental and Sustainable in front of it, it's a good thing. Ignore the fact that they're lobbying for the same loopholes and tax breaks they always were.

Corporations are about maximizing profit. ESG is just the latest smokescreen to let them keep doing more of the same without interference, and to get the people that used to criticize them to start praising them for coming around and embracing "sustainability," while they laugh all the way to the bank.

/r/politics Thread Parent Link - today.yougov.com