Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced a new initiative to fight environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) scores that America’s largest corporations and companies are adopting this week. ESG scores were originally developed as part of the United Nations Environment Programme Initiative as part of the Freshfield Report in 2005.
Since then, some of the most notable companies in the world are using the scoring system to determine if their company is implementing “accepted” environmental and social justice-related policies.
The DeSantis administration defined it as “woke corporate ideals.”
“ESG investors prioritize woke corporate ideals and non-financial factors as part of their investing process. ESG investors are corporate cartel elites who do not represent the will of the people, but rather base their investment strategies on social causes and virtue signaling while driving up costs for consumers in the name of diversity and sidelining hardworking Americans by threatening their livelihoods. Governance, AKA, an ‘ESG score,’ is a framework created to force companies to meet ESG standards, disadvantaging small, medium, and start-up businesses which cannot cope with increased costs to compete with woke mega corporations, and subverting the will of their shareholders.”
In a prepared statement, DeSantis denounced the practices of the “corporate elite.”
“The leveraging of corporate power to impose an ideological agenda on society represents an alarming trend,” said DeSantis. “From Wall Street banks to massive asset managers and big tech companies, we have seen the corporate elite use their economic power to impose policies on the country that they could not achieve at the ballot box. Through the actions I announced today, we are protecting Floridians from woke capital and asserting the authority of our constitutional system over ideological corporate power.”
DeSantis also calls on the Florida Legislature to combat ESG scoring by taking up legislation that will “prohibit big banks, credit card companies and money transmitters from discriminating against customers for their religious, political, or social beliefs.”
Incoming House Speaker Paul Renner (R-Palm Coast) offered his support to DeSantis’ effort.
“Woke elites use ESG investing to prop up far left policies, undermining our national security and raising prices for Americans,” said Renner. “The Florida House will join the fight to stop woke financial titans who seek to dictate policy to Floridians regardless of our choices at the ballot box. I look forward to working with Governor DeSantis to protect Floridians’ pocketbooks and strengthen our national security.”
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Grant Holcomb is a reporter at the Florida Capital Star and the Star News Network. Follow Grant on Twitter and direct message tips.
Photo “Ron DeSantis” by Governor Ron DeSantis.
