New report reveals surprising presidential candidates who will fight ESG, woke companies

Over the past decade, increasingly more companies have adopted environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics.

ESG is a kind of social credit scoring system that is designed to move the entire U.S. economy further to the left, by forcing businesses to promote social justice and environmental causes, like battling climate change.

According to a report by KPMG, one of the world’s largest accounting firms, 96 percent of the G250, defined as "the 250 largest companies by revenue as defined in the Fortune 500 ranking," have ESG reports, with many employing large teams dedicated exclusively to that cause.

Over the past two years, concerned Republican lawmakers, most notably at the state level, have been attempting to limit the spread of the ESG movement. But if policymakers truly want to stop ESG nationwide, it’s going to take support from the White House.

In 2024, Americans will have an opportunity to elect a new president, and when they do, it will almost certainly have a major effect on ESG. If President Biden is re-elected, the White House will continue to be a champion for imposing a woke ideological agenda through businesses, but what about the other presidential candidates?

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Republican presidential candidates, from left, Doug Burgum Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Mike Pence during a debate hosted by FOX Business Network in Simi Valley, California, on Sept. 27, 2023. (Eric Thayer)

Over the past summer, my team of researchers at The Heartland Institute investigated the ESG policy platform for nearly all of the presidential candidates, from Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump to Nikki Haley and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. They also investigated past statements made about ESG and voting records (if available).

In cases where presidential candidates hadn’t said much about ESG, I or members of my team reached out to the candidates directly to request more information.

Once all the data was compiled, we assigned letter grades to each of the 11 candidates reviewed and are just now publishing our findings. The best grades were awarded to candidates with strongest positions on ESG.

Our highest standard for an anti-ESG platform includes support for three specific policies: (1) preventing public money (especially pensions) from being used to promote ESG causes, (2) blocking government agencies from doing or expanding business with powerful pro-ESG interests, such as Blackrock, and (3) supporting legislation to stop banks and other financial institutions from using ESG to discriminate against businesses and individual consumers.

WHAT ESG INVESTING IS, AND WHY SOME POLITICIANS ARE AGAINST IT

The resulting study is the most in-depth ESG review of the presidential candidates ever made. While some of the findings likely won’t shock readers interested in this important topic, others will almost certainly come as a surprise.

The following is a quick overview of the results. If you’re interested in reading the full report, you can find it here.

The Anti-ESG Champions

Although most Republican voters might expect all the GOP candidates to be fully devoted to combating ESG, we found that only four met our gold standard for an anti-ESG platform: Ron DeSantis (A+), Donald Trump (A), Mike Pence (A), and Tim Scott (A-).

All four have supported taking the toughest action on ESG. DeSantis scored slightly higher than the rest of the candidates, including President Trump, because he is the only candidate in the race to have passed all of the strictest anti-ESG reforms into law.

The other three candidates have, at varying times, supported our gold standard approach, but they have not succeeded in getting all three of the strongest reforms codified.

Mixed Results

Two of the candidates in the race earned scores in the "B" range, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy (B) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (B-).

Ramaswamy’s B grade will probably be considered by most readers as our report’s biggest surprise. Ramaswamy has built his political career on helping to explain the dangers posed by ESG and woke businesses. He even started an investment management firm, Strive, to serve as an alternative to pro-ESG behemoths like Blackrock and State Street Global Advisors, among many others. Why, then, did Ramaswamy receive a B grade?

Despite Ramaswamy’s numerous statements, speeches, op-eds and policy proposals geared toward reducing the influence of ESG, we were not able to find any evidence that he would ban financial institutions from discriminating against consumers using ESG metrics, one of the most important tools needed to beat the ESG movement.

Our team reached out to the Ramaswamy campaign for clarification, but we did not receive a response.

Missing the Mark

Three candidates received grades in the "C" range, Nikki Haley (C+), Asa Hutchinson (C), and Chris Christie (C-).

Both Hutchinson and Christie have said very little about ESG, and they don’t appear to have any specific policy proposals meant to address the problem, other than plans to roll back some of the Biden administration’s pro-ESG regulations.

We also found very little information about ESG pertaining to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

We formally requested more information from her campaign, and we were provided with a very strong anti-ESG statement from the governor: "Let’s call ESG what it really is: corporate socialism. What we need is capitalism and not businesses caving to the left. When they do, everybody loses."

However, Haley did not offer any specific policies related to ESG, and at the time we completed our review, we found no evidence that her campaign platform includes a single mention of ESG.

Bottom of the Barrel

The two candidates with the lowest scores are Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (D) and President Biden (F).

To his credit, Kennedy has been very critical of some of the biggest supporters of ESG on Wall Street, including Blackrock, as well as many large corporations who use ESG as a way of virtue signaling.

But Kennedy’s policy platform is full of regulations and environmental policies designed to expand the size and influence of government. We found no evidence Kennedy would tackle the ESG issue. Instead, it’s far more likely that he’d make the problem significantly worse.

Biden is the only candidate to have received a failing grade. Unlike Kennedy, Biden has been in bed with the biggest pro-ESG institutions for years, including the World Economic Forum and Blackrock.

And Biden has used his power has president to enact important policies meant to increase the use of ESG. For example, in March, he vetoed a Republican-led effort to stop many Wall Street firms from using ESG when managing other people’s money.

As our report clearly illustrates, no matter who wins the race for the White House, one thing is certain: the 2024 presidential election will have a remarkable and long-lasting impact on ESG.

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Justin Haskins is the director of the Socialism Research Center at The Heartland Institute and a New York Times bestselling author.