BlackRock’s Larry Fink isn’t the only one dropping the now-controversial acronym ESG, which represents environmental, social, and corporate governance principles. McDonald’s Corp. has secretly erased ESG off its website, according to Bloomberg.
There’s no better example of the ESG investing fairy tale imploding in front of our eyes than McDonald’s removing the term from its website. We have told readers about the demise of ESG in several notes, one titled “ESG Is Dying Its Inevitable Death” and “Is The ESG Investing Boom Already Over?”
Recall, in mid-January, BlackRock’s Fink told Bloomberg TV at the World Economic Forum in Davos that ESG has been tarnished:
“Let’s be clear, the narrative is ugly, the narrative is creating this huge polarization.”
Fink continued:
“We are trying to address the misconceptions. It’s hard because it’s not business any more, they’re doing it in a personal way. And for the first time in my professional career, attacks are now personal. They’re trying to demonize the issues.”
For many years, we’ve understood that the entire “ESG” hype was one giant scam. Matt Lawton, T. Rowe Price Group Inc.’s sector portfolio manager in the Fixed Income Division, pointed this out one year ago: “It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find credible sustainability-linked bonds or SLBs.” In February 2020, we wrote “Behold The “Green” Scam,” and in April 2020, we noted “The Fraud That Is ESG Strikes Again: Six Of Top 10 ESG Funds Underperform The S&P500“.
Elon Musk has also expressed his frustration about ESG on “X,” formerly known as Twitter.
So it only makes sense that McDonald’s saw the way the ESG winds were shifting and scrubbed references to “ESG” on its “Purpose & Impact” portion of its website. A former page on its website called “ESG Approach & Progress” is now called “Our Approach & Progress.”
The fast-food chain, which has more than 13,500 restaurants across the US, also had a webpage called “Performance & ESG Reporting” that it has now re-titled to “Goal Performance & Reporting.” The site also uses “environmental and social issues” instead of “ESG” in certain areas.
A link in the Bloomberg article that was supposed to go to an environmental and social annual report via McDonald’s CEO’s LinkedIn comes up broken.
The ESG winds are shifting. We know that not just because of BlackRock and McDonald’s dropping the term, but the number of times “ESG” was mentioned in earnings calls has also slumped.
And the number of times mentioned in news stories is also waning.
So which company is next to remove ESG from their corporate website… Exxon?
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