4 ms·

A component of ESG scores is how much you discriminate against white people. So of course you can have a good ESG score yet be a polluter.

by Dig1t 3y ago

monero-xmr 3y ago
You need to discriminate against Asians too! Or at least the algorithm I’ve seen used by universities and DEI HR groups ends up discriminating against them most.
zarathustreal 3y ago
The notion of a social score is absurd. You'd first have to define *society*. At least here in the USA, there is no monolithic society. Cultures differ greatly depending on which state you're in and sometimes even within a state.
- kshahkshah 3y ago
  That's really it, we've no great unifying force as a country except occasional wars which force us to innovate. Otherwise we're usually just riding the wave of those times and really prolonging it at the great expense of everyone except those who know the game, want to play the game, and have enough money to participate in the game.
- brbrodude 3y ago
  Its in the words themselves, society is not culture, society means bonding of people/association to a thing, generally implied "civil society". This has nothing to do with some guy being a punk rocker skateboarder anarchist and the other a Mormon and the other a rural farm guy, that they cannot be a part of the same society. That's just not it.
kornhole 3y ago
This explains why some of the most polluting and damaging companies can be the most woke in their training and marketing. This has led to a major backlash with some companies now advertising themselves as anti-ESG. Splitting out the scores that are determined by independent agencies (not fund managers) could maybe improve the situation, but the botched history will impede any efforts to reform.
JamesBarney 3y ago
A couple of hiring managers from oil and gas companies have told me there is a strong push to try not to hire white ICs if you can help it. This makes more sense in the context of trying to get a good ESG score to improve their P/E ratio.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  Wouldn't good ESG score mean worse P/E ratio? As that would mean driving up the Price while Earnings might not be affected?
  - JamesBarney 3y ago
    What a better P/E ratio depends on whether you're buying or selling. As the CEO you want the highest price possible for your earnings.
    - Ekaros 3y ago
      Then it is probably better just to speak about straight up price.
- rayiner 3y ago
  Lawyers are going to have a field day over the next few years litigating over these discriminatory practices in view of SFFA and it’s logical corollaries: https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/AGLetterFortune100713.pdf https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/AGLetterFortune... What’s remarkable is that apparently none of these hiring managers and executives saw this coming. The stuff they’ve put into writing is wild. Some of the stuff, like aspirational racial quotas, wasn’t even legal under pre-SFFA law. I don’t know who was advising these people.
eli 3y ago
What specifically are you talking about?
- YSMLpT4b 3y ago
  [flagged]
- Dig1t 3y ago
  Here’s Apple’s ESG report: https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc_downloads/2022/08/2022_Apple_ESG_Report.pdf https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc_downloads/2022/08/2... In it they say: “We’re making progress in increasing representation, and currently 50 percent of our workforce in the U.S. is made up of people from underrepresented communities.” “Please see the Appendix on page 81 for more data on representation” Then scroll to page 81. We see that 43% of the company is white (the US is 60% white as of the last census, so white people are in fact underrepresented at Apple) 27.9% of the company is Asian 9.4% black 14.8% Hispanic So they have stated that they are working on “increasing representation” (hiring) all categories of people except white. They report these numbers because they are used to calculate the company’s ESG score. More diversity = higher score, where diversity is defined as fewer white people. A higher ESG score means that ESG funds are more likely to invest in this company, pushing up the company’s value. This is a literal economic incentive to discriminate against white people.
  - eli 3y ago
    > They report these numbers because they are used to calculate the company’s ESG score. More diversity = higher score, where diversity is defined as fewer white people. Where do you see that? That's not part of the criteria for my Vanguard ESG fund.
    - Dig1t 3y ago
      “What's #ESG Score and How it is calculated” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-esg-score-how-calculated-koviid-sharma#:~:text=It%20is%20a%20rating%20system,responsibility%2C%20and%20corporate%20governance%20practices https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-esg-score-how-calculate.... “There are several organizations and rating agencies that calculate ESG score” “Corporate Knights: Corporate Knights is a media and research company that publishes an annual ranking of the world's most sustainable corporations. Their methodology evaluates companies based on a range of ESG factors, including carbon productivity, diversity and inclusion, and clean revenue.” From the Corporate Knights website itself: “All publicly-traded companies with over US$1 billion in revenue are assessed across 25 key performance indicators, including % sustainable revenue, % sustainable investment, % taxes paid, carbon productivity, and racial and gender diversity.”
specialist 3y ago
Interesting. How's that measured, quantified?
dang 3y ago
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing the site guidelines and taking their intended spirit more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- Dig1t 3y ago
  I am sorry, I was not trying to post flamebait. I have provided more context with sources and an explanation of what I was talking about in questioning responses further down in the thread. I would include them in the parent comment if I was still able to edit it. I really don’t feel like it was a harmful comment, it has net upvotes, the majority here seem to agree with the sentiment.
  - dang 3y ago
    Your comment pointed directly to race war. That's practically the biggest flamebait there is—especially when you use high-indignation, low-information phrases like "how much you discriminate against $group". It's important to understand the concept of "generic tangent" - when a thread moves away from the specifics of a given story toward more familiar/bigger/hotter/divisive/sensational things, the discussion is guaranteed to get more repetitive, less interesting, and more likely to turn into a flamewar. You can't judge these things by upvotes—sensational comments and flamewar comments frequently get heavily upvoted. This is a weakness of the upvoting system. Past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22upvotes%20alone%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
    - Dig1t 3y ago
      Okay, I will be more substantive and try to leave out indignation in the future. I think I need to spend less time on the internet.

A component of ESG scores is how much you discriminate against white people. So of course you can have a good ESG score yet be a polluter.

by Dig1t 3y ago

A component of ESG scores is how much you discriminate against white people. So of course you can have a good ESG score yet be a polluter.

monero-xmr 3y ago

You need to discriminate against Asians too! Or at least the algorithm I’ve seen used by universities and DEI HR groups ends up discriminating against them most.

zarathustreal 3y ago

The notion of a social score is absurd. You'd first have to define *society*. At least here in the USA, there is no monolithic society. Cultures differ greatly depending on which state you're in and sometimes even within a state.

kshahkshah 3y ago
That's really it, we've no great unifying force as a country except occasional wars which force us to innovate. Otherwise we're usually just riding the wave of those times and really prolonging it at the great expense of everyone except those who know the game, want to play the game, and have enough money to participate in the game.
brbrodude 3y ago
Its in the words themselves, society is not culture, society means bonding of people/association to a thing, generally implied "civil society". This has nothing to do with some guy being a punk rocker skateboarder anarchist and the other a Mormon and the other a rural farm guy, that they cannot be a part of the same society. That's just not it.

kornhole 3y ago

This explains why some of the most polluting and damaging companies can be the most woke in their training and marketing. This has led to a major backlash with some companies now advertising themselves as anti-ESG. Splitting out the scores that are determined by independent agencies (not fund managers) could maybe improve the situation, but the botched history will impede any efforts to reform.

JamesBarney 3y ago

A couple of hiring managers from oil and gas companies have told me there is a strong push to try not to hire white ICs if you can help it. This makes more sense in the context of trying to get a good ESG score to improve their P/E ratio.

Ekaros 3y ago
Wouldn't good ESG score mean worse P/E ratio? As that would mean driving up the Price while Earnings might not be affected?
- JamesBarney 3y ago
  What a better P/E ratio depends on whether you're buying or selling. As the CEO you want the highest price possible for your earnings.
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    Then it is probably better just to speak about straight up price.
rayiner 3y ago
Lawyers are going to have a field day over the next few years litigating over these discriminatory practices in view of SFFA and it’s logical corollaries: https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/AGLetterFortune100713.pdf https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/AGLetterFortune... What’s remarkable is that apparently none of these hiring managers and executives saw this coming. The stuff they’ve put into writing is wild. Some of the stuff, like aspirational racial quotas, wasn’t even legal under pre-SFFA law. I don’t know who was advising these people.

eli 3y ago

What specifically are you talking about?

YSMLpT4b 3y ago
[flagged]
Dig1t 3y ago
Here’s Apple’s ESG report: https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc_downloads/2022/08/2022_Apple_ESG_Report.pdf https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc_downloads/2022/08/2... In it they say: “We’re making progress in increasing representation, and currently 50 percent of our workforce in the U.S. is made up of people from underrepresented communities.” “Please see the Appendix on page 81 for more data on representation” Then scroll to page 81. We see that 43% of the company is white (the US is 60% white as of the last census, so white people are in fact underrepresented at Apple) 27.9% of the company is Asian 9.4% black 14.8% Hispanic So they have stated that they are working on “increasing representation” (hiring) all categories of people except white. They report these numbers because they are used to calculate the company’s ESG score. More diversity = higher score, where diversity is defined as fewer white people. A higher ESG score means that ESG funds are more likely to invest in this company, pushing up the company’s value. This is a literal economic incentive to discriminate against white people.
- eli 3y ago
  > They report these numbers because they are used to calculate the company’s ESG score. More diversity = higher score, where diversity is defined as fewer white people. Where do you see that? That's not part of the criteria for my Vanguard ESG fund.
  - Dig1t 3y ago
    “What's #ESG Score and How it is calculated” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-esg-score-how-calculated-koviid-sharma#:~:text=It%20is%20a%20rating%20system,responsibility%2C%20and%20corporate%20governance%20practices https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-esg-score-how-calculate.... “There are several organizations and rating agencies that calculate ESG score” “Corporate Knights: Corporate Knights is a media and research company that publishes an annual ranking of the world's most sustainable corporations. Their methodology evaluates companies based on a range of ESG factors, including carbon productivity, diversity and inclusion, and clean revenue.” From the Corporate Knights website itself: “All publicly-traded companies with over US$1 billion in revenue are assessed across 25 key performance indicators, including % sustainable revenue, % sustainable investment, % taxes paid, carbon productivity, and racial and gender diversity.”

specialist 3y ago

Interesting. How's that measured, quantified?

dang 3y ago

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing the site guidelines and taking their intended spirit more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Dig1t 3y ago
I am sorry, I was not trying to post flamebait. I have provided more context with sources and an explanation of what I was talking about in questioning responses further down in the thread. I would include them in the parent comment if I was still able to edit it. I really don’t feel like it was a harmful comment, it has net upvotes, the majority here seem to agree with the sentiment.
- dang 3y ago
  Your comment pointed directly to race war. That's practically the biggest flamebait there is—especially when you use high-indignation, low-information phrases like "how much you discriminate against $group". It's important to understand the concept of "generic tangent" - when a thread moves away from the specifics of a given story toward more familiar/bigger/hotter/divisive/sensational things, the discussion is guaranteed to get more repetitive, less interesting, and more likely to turn into a flamewar. You can't judge these things by upvotes—sensational comments and flamewar comments frequently get heavily upvoted. This is a weakness of the upvoting system. Past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22upvotes%20alone%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
  - Dig1t 3y ago
    Okay, I will be more substantive and try to leave out indignation in the future. I think I need to spend less time on the internet.