As the backlash to ESG grows, business leaders aren't abandoning their climate work. They've just changed the way they talk about it
Some have used different language that avoids phrases like ESG; others have avoided even talking about it in public venues. But in operational plans and corporate-strategy sessions investors and business executives in most industries say they haven’t backtracked at all, particularly on environment- and climate-related issues.
You might call this an inflection point. Companies and investors are increasingly building climate into their strategies; they’re also rethinking how and whether they talk about it. “RIP to ESG,” Anne Simpson, global head of sustainability at the asset manager Franklin Templeton, told me earlier this year. “Not because we think this is an end to this, but because it’s a beginning.”It’s clear that climate change and the energy transition are irreversibly remaking sectors.
in the oil-and-gas industry as fossil fuel prices have risen is a prime example. And, surely, many companies will avoid thinking about decarbonization until they are forced to do so. But the reality is that stakeholders—governments, investors, consumers, and employees—are increasingly putting that pressure on companies.
Despite all this, the ESG backlash does matter, and businesses are terrified about the consequences of speaking out. BlackRock, to point to an obvious example, has lost billions in business from the states of Texas and Florida after being targeted by conservative politicians in those states. For that reason, companies increasingly seem inclined to follow a version of Fink’s approach: pursue climate efforts and explain them in clear language as a business objective. “Talk about the work that is happening,” Whitney Dailey, executive vice president at Allison+Partners, which advises on ESG communications, said during a panel I spoke on earlier this week.
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