Four Processual Shorts on the Subject of ESG

 

[February 17, 2011] "Hanging out with the boys at the Bob." All were pro-amateur skateboarders. Over the past twelve years since this photo was taken, one became a loving and endearing missionary to the Thai people; one an accomplished artist in tiling, mosaics, painting, and leather work; and the last, my most special relationship, became my son-in-law and husband to my daughter, and father to my grandson. He took his passion for music and skateboarding and turned it into an industry for the Gen-YZ's of the world and then to everyone everywhere when building accessible, three-wheel recombinant trikes for recreational fun, the infirmed, the aged, and health. - res

Eco-Civ Short #1/4

Building ecological societies one ESG element at a time. Integrating nature, people, and ethical policies of sustainability, green and blue infrastructures, technologies, and global interaction together in improving streams of biotic value, functional generation and societal equality.

R.E Slater

February 17, 2023

Eco-Civ Short #2/4

I speak to building processual "ecological societies" all the time. ESG is an approximation of this idea at this time... it brings a mixture of community-first eco-business with a high degree of competition utilizing biotic sustainability modeling in its business ethics. Which is why I include the Forbes, Fortune, and WSJ articles to FB every now and then re ESG along with my own articles on building process-relational societies (as versus "biblical" kingdom communities of oppression and domination).

Businesses will not be moving backwards into past non-ESG paradigms because ESG is much more than sustainability models now including green and blue community-based infrastructures, tech business integration, and community standards of equality.

Those businesses which cannot change their commercial and industrial modelling plans re environmental, societal and local policy impact, make for poorer investment models for investors wishing improvement across a wide scale of relief.

Hence, when businesses are being overlooked in outside funding it is because their older business models are not implementing themselves as environmental caretakers, employer-employee caretakers, or local societal policies of community caretake.

Such business models are no longer competitive and will show a poorer return on funds compared to those business competitors which have worked ESG into their programs for the good of the environment, society, and dealings with one another.

R.E Slater

February 17, 2023

Eco-Civ Short #3/4

Purposely misunderstanding ESG is no defense for taking right actions towards the environment, people, and ethics in government.

• EEEE - Refusing to stop polluting and toxifying biotic and human communities shows willful disregard to the welfare of a highly integrated community.

• SSSS - Refusing to consider employment conditions and welfare of your workers again promotes money over value.

• GGGG - And allowing corruption, lies, and false dealing between elected representatives and the public means removal from office (hopefully immediately re criminal prosecutiins). 

In sum, THIS IS WHAT ESG MEANS... my word for ESG remains the same, socially responsible "ecological societies, communities, and global civilizations".  We live in processual worlds where processual caretake must be a part of our investment into one another and the world at large.

EXCERPT from Wikipedia

1. EEEEnvironmental aspect: Data is reported on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, deforestation, pollution, energy efficiency and water management.
2. SSSSocial aspect: Data is reported on employee safety and health, working conditions, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and conflicts and humanitarian crises, and is relevant in risk and return assessments directly through results in enhancing (or destroying) customer satisfaction and employee engagement.
3. GGGGovernance aspect: Data is reported on corporate governance such as preventing bribery, corruption, Diversity of Board of Directors, executive compensation, cybersecurity and privacy practices, and management structure.

R.E Slater

February 17, 2023

Environmental, social, and corporate governance

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) is a framework designed to be embedded into an organization's strategy that considers the needs and ways in which to generate value for all of organizational stakeholders (such as employees, customers and suppliers and financiers).

ESG corporate reporting can be used by stakeholders to assess the material sustainability-related risks and opportunities relevant to an organization. Investors may also use ESG data beyond assessing material risks to the organization in their evaluation of enterprise value, specifically by designing models based on assumptions that the identification, assessment and management of sustainability-related risks and opportunities in respect to all organizational stakeholders leads to higher long-term risk-adjusted return.^[1] Organizational stakeholders include but not limited to customers, suppliers, employees, leadership, and the environment.^[2]

Since 2020, there has been accelerating pressure from the United Nations to overlay ESG data with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), based on their work, which began in the 1980s.^[3]

The term ESG was popularly used first in a 2004 report titled "Who Cares Wins", which was a joint initiative of financial institutions at the invitation of UN.^[4] In less than 20 years, the ESG movement has grown from a corporate social responsibility initiative launched by the United Nations into a global phenomenon representing more than US$30 trillion in assets under management.^[5] In the year 2019 alone, capital totaling US$17.67 billion flowed into ESG-linked products, an almost 525 percent increase from 2015, according to Morningstar, Inc.^[6] Critics claim ESG linked-products have not had and are unlikely to have the intended impact of raising the cost of capital for polluting firms,^[7] and have accused the movement of greenwashing.^[8]

Dimensions

1. Environmental aspect: Data is reported on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, deforestation, pollution, energy efficiency and water management.
2. Social aspect: Data is reported on employee safety and health, working conditions, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and conflicts and humanitarian crises,^[9] and is relevant in risk and return assessments directly through results in enhancing (or destroying) customer satisfaction and employee engagement.
3. Governance aspect: Data is reported on corporate governance such as preventing bribery, corruption, Diversity of Board of Directors, executive compensation, cybersecurity and privacy practices, and management structure.

* * * * * *

Eco-Civ Short #4/4

Ideological politics aside American business is committed to ESG as is global business. The wording, like CRT, is purposely misunderstood by MAGA-heads... but then again ideology serves no man or woman except those looking to gain power rather than doing right.

R.E Slater

February 17, 2023

EXCERPT

"Taking care of the communities you operate in helps ensure those communities will allow you to operate in the future. Recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce is essential to acquiring the best talent in a labor-constrained world. And focusing on how your company can meaningfully contribute to the climate transition is a way to create value in a business world that is clearly committed to that transition. In short, companies need to do a better job making it clear this is not about politics; it’s about good, long-term business."

Alan Murray, Editor of Fortune Magazine

Memo Link

Good morning.

Do deficits matter?

I have spent much of my career in the vicinity of that question, having covered U.S. fiscal policy as a cub reporter in the 1980s. That’s when supply-side Republicans dropped their concerns about deficits to push tax cuts as a counter to Democrats who had already abandoned deficit concerns to push spending increases. A stalwart but steadily shrinking group of people continued to beat the deficit drum, arguing deficit spending would “crowd out” private investment. But the new millennium obliterated that argument, too, by making capital plentiful and free. “Crowding out” went the way of the Walkman. 

Well, suddenly, they’re back. Deficits, that is. I’m not sure the last time a deficit story led the New York Times, but yesterday morning, it did. The story quoted new Congressional Budget Office projections showing a combination of pandemic-era spending, aging boomers and rising interest rates would add $19 trillion to the U.S. national debt over the next decade—$3 trillion more than previously forecast. Total debt outstanding will equal the total economic output of the U.S. economy next year and reach 118% of GDP in 2033.

Meanwhile, “crowding out” has taken on new meaning. It’s not that deficits might crowd out private investment—the case for that remains weak, given inflation-adjusted interest rates that are still close to zero. Rather, the new numbers show that as nominal rates rise, servicing the debt will rise faster than tax income, eating up more and more of the federal budget, and leaving less money to address real needs.  

So what’s to be done? With a vibrant economy and a functioning federal government, the problem is solvable. The Committee for Economic Development, which is part of The Conference Board, laid out a reasonable road map earlier this week, which you can explore here. (Full disclosure: My wife is president of CED.) But while the U.S. has a vibrant economy, it still lacks a functioning government. Deficit reduction involves shared sacrifice, and that has to be done on a bipartisan basis. Don’t hold your breath.

More news below. And don’t get too excited about the uptick in home prices at the start of this year. Fortune’s Lance Lambert says they are headed south again.

Alan Murray

@alansmurray

alan.murray@fortune.com

Peter Rollins - What We Can Learn from Mark Driscoll re Power and Resistance

Mark Driscoll

Power and Resistance: What we can learn from Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill

http://peterrollins.net/2014/08/power-and-resistance-what-we-can-learn-from-mark-driscoll-and-mars-hill/

by Peter Rollins

August 25, 2014

Previously I’ve written about how ideology doesn’t merely offer us an explicit set of practices that are acceptable and unacceptable, but also an implicit constellation of acceptable ways to do unacceptable practices.

Ideology doesn’t simply police the borders between the law and transgression, but also offers up ways of transgressing what is acceptable to the law. An ideology thus does not only create the distinction between the category of orthodox and heretic (or sacred and profane), but also offers up ways of being a heretic (profane) that are allowed by the authorities (the sacred).

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An interesting example of this can be seen in a recent campaign by the Australian group Love Makes a Way. In protest against the imprisonment of children seeking asylum, various religious leaders in Adelaide engaged in an illegal sit-in at the electoral office of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. For a time this protest was allowed, but eventually the police were called in to remove them.

What we witness here is the slide from an acceptable form of transgressive protest to an unacceptable one.

Initially the act was tolerated. Indeed, if they had simply entered, made a statement, then left this would have been an acceptable transgression allowed by the authorities. It would also have been largely ineffective in making change. But there came a point when the transgression of the protestors was no longer acceptable to the authorities and the police started making arrests.

This wasn’t the first time Love Makes a Way had engaged in such activities. Previously some religious leaders who had been arrested were charged and brought to court. Yet this only caused embarrassment to the Government, for the media covered the story and citizens started to ask difficult questions concerning the unjust policy. In addition, the protestors were acquitted and the Judge commended them for their stance (another serious embarrassment to the Government).

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Of course ideological systems quickly adjust to such acts. Hence, those who place themselves in the camp of resistance need to constantly adjust their strategy. In the above example the police quickly learned that they should quietly release the next batch of protestors rather than put them through the courts.

The point here is that ideological systems operate with a subterranean network of transgressive practices, practices that are needed for the smooth running of the system itself. A Government might, for example, champion human rights, freedom and justice, while implicitly engaging in torture, the creation of Black Hole prisons and imprisonment without recourse to the legal system. These subterranean activities are needed by the system to manage a crisis within that system, but the abusive practices cannot be named.

Effective protest involves bringing these unspoken truths to the surface, confronting the system with its own disavowed truth. This can only happen when dissidents refuse to play into the perverse system of acceptable protest (protest endorsed by the system it attacks) and instead find ways of bringing those things into the light of day. Yet, with each move dissidents make, the system will attempt to compensate, adjust, and normalize. Hence new ways of transgressing the norm must be found.

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This cat-and-mouse game is what we see play out in the events surrounding Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill in recent years. As such it offers an instructive example of the relationship between between power and resistance.

Mars Hill, like any ideological system, was able to maintain its equilibrium through a subterranean network of disavowed activities (plagiarism, manipulation of book sales, unfair sacking, totalitarian leadership structures, anonymous outbursts of rage etc.). These activities were, to a greater or lesser extent, known by many members of Mars Hill. But they remained part of the secret pact of the organization.

While Driscoll recently said that he had wished these transgressions were dealt with internally (rather than in the “court of public opinion”) the problem is precisely that these transgressions are generally already known internally (for example, many employees of Mars Hill will have known about how book sales figures were being manipulated and people were being unfairly dismissed). An internal process would then be an impotent gesture that would lead to little more than token changes. For real transformation to happen resistance needs to occur in a way that isn’t endorsed by the system it critiques.

It was only because many who left Mars Hill became increasingly vocal about the abuse, combined with the persistence of individuals like Stephanie Drury, Matthew Paul Turner, and Rachael Held Evans, that the implicit constellation of acceptable transgressions within the Mars Hill edifice (transgressions that enabled it to function), were directly exposed. An exposure that led to the exposure of a fundamentally unjust and oppressive culture.

It’s hard to tell what will happen next, for the system will try hard to adapt. For example Driscoll is currently closely working with the highly skilled conservative PR firm DeMoss. Their job, which they will do well, will be to attempt to re-establish equilibrium within the system via token gestures, minor adjustments and highly orchestrated attempts to appease critics. In contrast, those who have been bringing up the subterranean network of abuses within Mars Hill have few resources at their disposal. Yet regardless of what happens at Mars Hill, what we see playing out is a very clear example of how power and resistance operate.

Politically speaking, this can help us understand the importance of what is currently taking place in Ferguson, MO. What we witness there are protestors who are finding ways to bring to light the systemic racism operating within the political system itself, a resistance that is drawing to the light of day the ubiquitous, normalized violence operating in disavowed ways. Distressingly, when exposing such abuse within a system that controls the police and military, the results will often be brutal, horrifying and deadly. But the world is watching and, if the protestors are successful, change will gradually come.

Business & Ethics: Google New Anti-Porn Policy Hits the Bottom Line

The corporate giant's stance against explicit content could have Internet-wide ramifications.

Why Google’s New Anti-Porn Policy Is Such a Big Deal

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/why-google%E2%80%99s-new-anti-porn-policy-such-big-deal

July 9, 2014

Last week, Google sent out a letter to many of their advertisers, informing them of their new policy to no longer accept AdWords advertisements containing explicit language or that link to porn sites.

This is a huge deal, and not just because of its implications for users who will no longer see search ads for porn sites. This is a move that could significantly affect Google’s bottom line.

Essentially, Google is getting out of the porn business.

So What Does This Mean?

To clarify, Google isn’t further limiting its search engine’s ability to find and link to adult websites. Instead, with this policy, Google will no longer be profiting from them as their customers. The new rules are directly aimed at excluding porn-peddling from its AdWords campaigns.

As a technology company, Google does a lot of things: They make cool maps; have created the world’s most popular mobile operating system; help you organize emails. They also maintain the Internet’s biggest search engine. But ultimately, Google does one thing very well: They help you find things.

Their entire brand is predicated on people coming to them to help them find things—driving directions, email contacts, funny videos—more easily. It’s also their business model.

How Do Google's Ads Work?

BY ALLOWING ADS TO PORN SITES, GOOGLE WAS ESSENTIALLY

MAKING MONEY DIRECTLY OFF OF PEOPLE GOING TO LOOK AT PORN.

THAT IS, UNTIL NOW.

If you’re not familiar with how AdWords work, it’s a simple concept: Customers can create small, text-based ads linking to their website that will appear along with the organic results when a user searches for designated terms. (They are the links that appear on the side and top of the page when you Google something.) The more specific and in-demand the terms themselves are (and, depending on how much custom demographic targeting you want to include) the more expensive they are. Advertisers pay Google a small amount every time someone clicks on the ad. Ideally, everyone wins: The advertisers get a customer looking for their website, and customers find what they are looking for.

AdsWords are also extremely profitable for Google. A 2012 study estimated that the company made $100 million a day just from AdWords campaigns.

But, by allowing ads to porn sites, Google was essentially making money directly off of people going to look at porn. That is, until now.

What Is Google Giving Up?

It’s hard to know how much money this new policy will cost Google. But, considering some stats estimate that 12 percent of all websites contain pornography, and 25 percent of all search engine requests are porn-related, the number could be massive.

How Is This Different?

GOOGLE IS SHOWING THAT IT IS WILLING TO SACRIFICE A LARGE CHUNK

OF CONSTANT REVENUE IN ORDER TO NO LONGER PROFIT FROM THE PROLIFERATION OF PORNOGRAPHY.

It should be noted that this isn’t Google’s first action against porn. They recently banned the sale of apps that contain pornographic material from being sold for Glass, and have invested substantially in fighting child porn.

The AdWords policy though—which actually first changed in March—is different.

Their efforts in partnering with law enforcement to find Internet users who exploit children is admirable, but it isn’t a threat to its business model. With this new stand, Google is showing that it is willing to sacrifice a large chunk of constant revenue in order to no longer profit from the proliferation of pornography on the Internet.