That’s the million (or trillion) dollar question. Doesn’t corporate management have a fiduciary responsibility to the owners/stockholders?
If, for instance, a bank lends money not based on the ability of a borrowing company to make money but based on some arbitrary standard that could cause the loan to go bad, hasn’t the bank intentionally lost its shareholders’ money?
I’m pretty sure management cannot knowingly engage in business practices that will lose money.
So how does this ESG nonsense work unless the law is changed?
You are 100% correct ... except that the gubment already has a say in it. When Hussein was prez he ordered that federal pension funds divest from companies that are environmentally or socially "bad". Thus, investment firms created a new industry to make a bogus ESG rating. Many states followed Hussein's example and now many state pensions don't invest in low score ESG funds.
Thus if you're a CEO it's in your shareholders' best interest to score high on the BS ESG rating.
Side note: some ESG mutual funds dropped Tesla recently as soon as Musk came out and said he was going to quit voting Dim. It's not like Tesla quit making EV's or selling carbon credits or anything else the Dims pay attention to. Evidently all that matters in an ESG score is how much you butt kiss the Dims.
“I’m pretty sure management cannot knowingly engage in business practices that will lose money.
So how does this ESG nonsense work unless the law is changed?”
ESG is golden and government will never enforce against companies that are high rated for ESG. Warren Buffet, T. Boone Pickens and other have publicly stated that the only reason Wind makes money is the govt subsidies. EV companies feeding at the same trough.