🔥 ♻️ 🏳️‍🌈 ESG and DEI Policies Were Always Luxury Goods

⬛️ The end of the low interest-rate era has coincided with both the public and corporate sectors pulling back on efforts to be "virtuous".

🔶️ With that in mind, consider the pullback from environmental, social and governance (ESG) and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies across the public and corporate sectors. In the UK, the Financial Reporting Council has just opted against including ESG requirements in the UK Corporate Governance Code — these were to have increased the role of audit committees in overseeing ESG and expanding diversity and inclusion. BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink rarely mentions ESG any more. Elon Musk reckons that “DEI must DIE.” Bill Ackman (whose money matters) has called DEI the “root cause” of the sharp rise in anti-semitism at US universities. Donald Trump has promised to cancel all DEI initiatives across the federal government. The courts have already called a halt to race-based affirmative action at US universities, and last year the Attorney Generals of 13 US states wrote to Fortune 100 CEOs to let them know they would face serious legal consequences if they were to treat people “differently because of the color of their skin.”

🔶️ Across the board, mentions of DEI and ESG in earnings calls with companies have fallen fairly dramatically as has their prominence in presentations. This might be partly a matter of legality, but it might also be that these two things are luxury goods in a corporate world that is no longer completely convinced they offer value.

🔶️ Author Rob Henderson coined the phrase “luxury beliefs” in 2019 to describe a set of views that allow people to signal their high status — but which confer no cost upon them personally. Think virtue signaling. During the long period of cheap and easy money and consistently rising share prices, DEI and ESG might have performed a similar purpose for companies. They came with little cost and conferred elite status on those who took them on in bulk. You might say that luxury interest rates fostered luxury corporate beliefs.

🔶️ Today, those same beliefs look like they might have a cost, something that rather changes the equation. There is as yet no convincing long-term evidence that firms with higher ESG ratings outperform those without. And while case studies can always be found, there is also no robust evidence that spending on DEI policies improves long-term share price performance either. The diversity dividend has so far been pretty elusive. Here’s Harvard professor Jesse Fried on the matter: “the empirical evidence provides little support for the claim that gender or ethnic diversity in the boardroom increases shareholder value.”

🔶️ Many will disagree with that — academic research on this matter contains a mountain of confirmation bias — but it remains the case that the jury on all these things is very much out. That being the case, why have too big an expensive department full of DEI and ESG experts? Might there instead be a value to focusing on making the stuff you make well and hiring the best possible person for each job on any given day?

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-01-29/personal-wealth-esg-and-dei-were-always-luxury-goods

https://archive.ph/pyCbt