Despite the souring opinions on environmental, social, and governance standards, activist groups have levied shareholder power to use ESG in a bid to hurt conservative groups.
Conservative watchdog American Accountability Foundation cataloged shareholder resolutions aiming to shame companies from associating with conservative groups in a memo titled “Naming and Shaming,” obtained exclusively by the Washington Examiner. The report outlines how groups work to pressure companies, from Coca-Cola to Wells Fargo, to “put trade associations, conservative groups, and lobbyists out of business.”
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“ESG’s goal is to force companies to name trade associations, think tanks, other non-profits, political committees, and candidates they support, so the woke mob can later shame companies for supporting them. The end goal (and likely result) of these naming and shaming efforts is to decrease membership in, and contributions to, any organization or individual that the left deems ‘incongruent’ with liberal orthodoxy,” the report said.
The report catalogs how three groups, the Corporate Reform Coalition, the Proxy Preview triad, and the Center for Political Accountability, work to suppress conservative voices in corporate America by using shareholder resolutions. The memo outlines connections between the groups and left-wing activists, including one of the groups in the Proxy Preview having received donations from liberal billionaire George Soros.
The various shareholder resolutions from the group name drop groups like the Federalist Society, the Independent Women’s Forum, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and several Republican groups like the NRSC. The resolutions outline how aligning with the groups allegedly goes against ESG initiatives sought after by the company.
AAF Director of Research Jerome Trankle, who authored the report, said the memo outlines the ways governance standards pose a threat to companies by subjecting “political spending of public companies to the scrutiny of the woke mob.”
“While most people know that ESG threatens the energy industry and America’s energy independence, comparatively little attention has been paid to the threat ESG poses to trade associations and the advocacy community. The ESG movement, which is an arm of the organized Left, has co-opted the shareholder resolution process to subject the political spending of public companies to the scrutiny of the woke mob,” Trankle said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
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“It is an assault on free speech and freedom of association that deliberately designed to cut off companies from supporting pro-business and conservative groups,” he added.
ESG policies have come under increased scrutiny in recent years, with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink saying in June he would stop using the term and the S&P Global dropping the ESG scale from its debt ratings.
