A Deeper Look At DeSantis’ Anti-ESG Legislation: What Is ESG?

Florida’s anti-ESG legislation, championed by Governor Ron DeSantis, is positioned to be the model for anti-ESG legislation in the United States. 20 Republican Governors have already signed on to adopt similar policies. The legislation itself is massive and sweeping, touching on multiple areas of law and policy. This is the first in a series of articles that will deep dive into Florida’s proposed legislation and look into its potential impacts in the larger ESG debate. However, before looking at the language of the legislation, we must start at the beginning. What is ESG?

ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance. It has gone by other names over the years including impact investing, social impact investing, and sustainable investing. At its core, it is an investment strategy. A way to use your money to impact change. We often see this in political movements. Conservatives boycotting Disney because of “woke” policies, or going to a business to support their Christian values. Liberals boycotting businesses over Black Lives Matter stances, or supporting environmentally friendly companies. Companies know that, and they include it in their marketing strategy.

In theory, ESG just took that to the next step and applied it to your retirement funds, giving you the option to choose how your money is invested. Fund managers already present their clients with multiple options, allowing the investor to choose their level of risk. ESG adds another option, where the investor can choose a lower return, but feel like their money is doing something good. Investing in a green company may not make you as much money, but you’ll feel like you’re doing your part to help the environment. If that is your choice, you should be allowed to make it. However, ESG took on a life of its own.

If I told you that the United Nations developed a plan to manipulate financial investments to force businesses to enact environmental and social policies that align with their goals, announced by Al Gore, you would probably start pushing me into the conspiracy theory category. Yet, it happened. It didn’t happen in secret. There are no leaked documents or conspirators. It happened in public, through public meetings, with clearly stated goals and outcomes, and they held a press conference to announce it. We just didn’t know what they were talking about.

That push drove ESG, primarily in the European Union. This rapid growth was problematic for those tasked with making financial decisions. The first real issue for ESG was the lack of clarity. Sure, “e” stands for environmental, “s” stands for social, and “g” stands for governance. “C” is for cookie, and while that is good enough for the Cookie Monster, that is not good enough in the world of financial investments. Terms need clear definitions, measurements, and projected outcomes.

When most people discuss ESG, they gravitate towards the environmental piece. It appears to be fairly self-explanatory; a company that is environmentally friendly. However, environmentally friendly is a vague term. It could be a reduction in waste, adding solar panels, low emission vehicles, or any number of factors, all of which are self-reported by the company. As no reporting standards are currently in existence, companies can make their claims based on their own internal calculations, and fund managers can make their choice to invest based on what they choose to prioritize. This has led to what is known as greenwashing, or when a company exaggerates its environmental policies in order to appear more environmentally friendly than they really are.

Do not overlook the social and governance components, as that is where the real conflict arises. In the United Kingdom, social includes investment in affordable housing. In the European Union, it looks at factors like the use of slave labor in the supply chain. In the United States, it includes diversity and inclusion. Those factors, and how they are weighed, vary wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and fund manager to fund manager. ESG is not just about the environment.

There are international efforts to create reporting standards, but they will not be released until later this year and no front-runner has been selected. That alone is problematic, to say the least.

To this point, I’ve presented ESG as if it is your choice, but ESG has taken a turn from elective to mandatory. A select group of fund managers followed the UN’s lead and started including ESG factors in all their funds, under the premise that ESG is good for the long-term growth of a company. This approach has wide ranging impacts. It effects long-term growth calculations for publicly held companies. It impacts credit ratings for government bonds. Banks are calculating the risk of business loans and accounts based on ESG. What was an abstract concept a few years ago, is now directly driving sectors of the business and financial markets.

In response, business leaders and Republican elected officials began pushing pack. The Trump administration introduced a Department of Labor rule limiting ESG that was eventually overturned under the Biden administration. States then started taking action. Texas struck first by adjusting how they invested state pensions. Florida followed soon thereafter by doing the same, then took it a step further introducing their anti-ESG legislation.

The legislation addresses five key areas: investment of state money, investment of pension funds, issuing bonds, banks, and government contracts. Those areas are about states controlling what they can control. Over the next few articles, each of those areas will be looked at in depth. What is happening in Florida could be the future of the anti-ESG movement in the United States.