I think it goes some way in mitigating the backlash that ESG has suffered
from over the last year or so. You know, especially when Larry Fink
says ESG has been weaponized. And I'm sure that's an area of concern
for you, because we were just about gathering momentum on the issue of
inclusive capitalism and suddenly financiers and banks and investors all
over the world thought that it was going too far.
How do you see that backlash play out? So I believe that ESG as a term should
be put into the dustbin. Okay.
I don't think we should try to defend the ESG as a term
because it's been sullied by its it's been productized by too many people.
There's too much greenwashing around it. There's too much virtue signaling.
And people just think if they hang up an ESG shingle, that they are a
virtuous company. And I would throw that in the dustbin.
And what I would do is I would go back to a narrative for the public about
let's look at what great companies in history did to become great, whether it
was, you know, AT&T or here in India, ITC, two and a half decades ago.
They looked at what how are we treating our people?
How are we treating the planet? And so I would say that what we should
do is we should say that business at its best has always been in the business of
providing the best products to their consumers.
Built and designed by people who loved the product, who loved the company, who
were fairly compensated, who lived, and businesses that lived in communities
where they the business was an integral part of that community.
And doing all of those things creates more valuable companies.
It's been shown over and over again. So I would lose ESG, but I would really
bear down on what are companies doing. To profitably solve the problems of
people on the planet. And I would do that as an investor.
I would do that as an employee. I would do that as a board member.
I would do that as a journalist. On companies that are profiting while at
the same time ruining people's lives or ruining the planet.
Those are not long term keepers. Those are the companies that should
fall, fall off, you know, down by the wayside.
We should elevate we sometimes at the Council for Inclusive Capitalism, call
it a Race to the Top. We should invest in and work for
companies that are taking care of people and planet.
That's the way I would expect something will replace ESG, right?
Because all of this needs to be measurable, describable and tangible for
investors to find a way to invest in. So if you just been ESG for all the bad
will that it is on over the last couple of years, something else will take its
place. Is there a concept or an idea that you
think could improve or actually deliver what ESG was meant to but didn't?
I think it's vital that we deliver what ESG was meant to deliver, and ESG as a
term was created almost by accident by the United Nations in a speech in 2005.
And then it took on a huge life of its own and a solid itself in the end, in
the process. So, yes, I think
I think that ESG will be replaced by
responsible business. Like what kind of businesses do we want
to invest in? What kind of businesses do we want to
work for? And it will be
it'll take the heat off of this ridiculous political rhetoric that
people are weaponizing. Businesses that do the right thing for
all of its constituents. So I think it probably so I'm happy to
get rid of ESG and let that battle be be fought by people who are anachronistic
and not even relevant anymore.