ESG

ESG (environmental, social and governance) is the framing under which a company’s social and environmental conduct is treated as a financial factor. In the saved material it appears mainly as a question: does being good pay?

• A collaborative thread concludes that consumers care but price and quality come first; authenticity cannot be faked; employees care less than hoped; and that on “earning power, cost of capital, and ultimately valuation” the answer is “a definitive yes”, with capital markets compared to “cults” that pay a premium to align financial and social capital. See Cost of Capital.
• The Case for Shareholder Capitalism is written against ESG and Stakeholder Capitalism.
• BlackRock’s CEO letters pushed net-zero commitments and ESG disclosure, and Cerberus Capital Management is cited as an early case of institutional LPs pushing a PE firm to divest on social grounds. BloombergNEF also links here.

Where this appears

Books to read

• The Case for Shareholder Capitalism

Companies

• BlackRock
• BloombergNEF
• Cerberus Capital Management

Tweets

• 1- is Being Good for… (tweet)