What Is E.S.G., and Why Are Republicans So Mad About It?

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The principle behind E.S.G. is that investors should look beyond just whether a company can make a profit and take into account other factors, such as its environmental impact and action on social issues. But critics of that investment strategy, mostly Republicans, say that Wall Street has taken a sharp left turn, attacking what they term “woke capitalism.” Guest: David Gelles, a climate correspondent for The New York Times.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is The Daily.
0:07.0	In the coming days, President Biden will issue the first video of his presidency in defense
0:19.5	of an investment philosophy that many Americans have never heard of.
0:25.0	Today, my colleague David Gellis on why that philosophy has become so controversial.
0:42.0	It's Monday, March 13th.
0:46.0	David, it hasn't happened yet, but when I imagined President Biden's first legislative
0:57.0	veto, not that I stay up late and I'm imagining it, but to the degree I ever had, I imagined
1:02.0	it would be a rejection of a big social proposal from Republicans, maybe something related
1:08.1	to abortion or a cherished democratic program. Instead, we now expect Biden to wield his
1:15.6	first veto pen to defend an acronym that I'm going to be honest, I haven't really ever
1:20.6	heard of before, ESG.
1:24.0	It is not what most people had on their bingo cards. The fact that Biden's first veto
1:29.7	would be about this arcane investing philosophy that has sort of out of nowhere become this
1:35.6	political lightning rod.
1:37.6	No, wasn't on my bingo card. So just to get this out of the way, what is ESG? What is this
1:44.4	investment philosophy?
1:46.6	ESG is one of these acronyms that Wall Street comes up with to explain what it is they think
1:53.0	they're trying to do. The E stands for Environmental Priorities. That's things like reducing carbon
1:59.0	emissions. The S stands for Social Factors. That is things like good labor policies and
2:04.7	improving diversity in the workplace. The G is for governance. That is good corporate
2:10.0	governance, making sure a corporation's house is in order and that their executive compensation
2:14.8	policies are best in class. All of this was invented as a way to essentially make sure
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New York Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New York Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.