S&P 500 CEOs join Larry Fink in avoiding ESG mentions (2023)
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BlackRock CEO Larry Fink argued two weeks ago that the term ESG had become politicized and that he would, as a result, stop using the term (although his firm did not change its investment strategy). A Yahoo Finance report on July 8 cited data from FactSet that suggested references to the term ESG appeared in the fewest S&P 500 conference calls since Q2 2020:
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BlackRock's Larry Fink isn’t the only CEO no longer using the now-controversial acronym ESG. ESG — which stands for a focus on environmental, social, and corporate governance principles — was mentioned by just 74 S&P 500 companies on corporate conference calls held during the first-quarter earnings season, according to data gathered by FactSet. That was the lowest count in nearly three years and down from a peak of 156 in the fourth quarter of 2021. Executives are now more likely to mention artificial intelligence (AI), which garnered 110 mentions in calls held from March 15 through June 9. The ESG mentions could fall again when companies begin to release their second-quarter results in the coming weeks. "Something drastic happened in the past year or so," said Erick Mokaya, lead author of The Transcript, a newsletter devoted to trends in earnings calls. … Mokaya pointed to one moment last September as a key turning point for how ESG is treated by the c-suite. It was then that JPMorgan Chase (JPM ) CEO Jamie Dimon appeared before Congress and questioned much of the ESG orthodoxy, saying "we aren’t getting this one right." Dimon argued that a more nuanced approach to things like climate practices was needed. "Since then, a lot more CEOs have gotten bolder" about questioning previous ESG strategies and downplaying the term, said Mokaya.[1] |
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See also
- Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG)
- Economy and Society: Ballotpedia's ESG newsletter
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
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