It's a problem of delegation. Some executive "reads" some whitepaper (I.E. gets told about offhandedly by their buddy at the golf course), and thinks that it so

It's a problem of delegation. Some executive "reads" some whitepaper (I.E. gets told about offhandedly by their buddy at the golf course), and thinks that it sounds like a great way to prove their "doing something" about moral or diversity or whatever. They then turn around and tell someone under them to "make it so", who does a tiny bit of research and then passes that off to someone under them. Eventually this arrives at someone with a clue who actually does some research and figures out this is an idiotic idea, but at that point you'd basically be telling your bosses bosses boss that he's a moron, so instead you just play along, get it done, and hope everyone forgets about it in a couple months.