Letter to the editor: ESG standards will hurt Americans

Recent trends of banking institutions and investment firms adopting ESG scoring should disturb small and medium-sized businesses and the public at large.

ESG (environment, social, governance) scoring is a metric standard devised by the world’s largest banks and the World Economic Forum to determine how closely corporations are following the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Let us remember these are not goals established by American legislators for Americans but are rather global goals designated by a global elite.

Corporations will receive scores on how closely they follow ESG policies, and these scores may determine access to financial services such as credit worthiness or investment potential. A transportation company that chooses not to refurbish its fleet with electric vehicles would receive a low ESG score, which could hamper its ability to borrow.

Corporate activism already has been displayed from large U.S. banks attempting to deny financial service to oil and gas and firearms industries. Once entrenched, the consumer will be next. ESG will strangle business, reshape the free market system and eventually marginalize Americans who do not comply.

Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity and the Pennsylvania Legislature should pass a bill to prohibit financial institutions from refusing financial service based on ESG criteria, divest state-directed investment funds from institutions that encumber or refuse financing based on arbitrary standards and protect Pennsylvanians from discrimination or boycott of service based on non-financial criteria including social media posts, participation in associations or unions, political or religious affiliation or social justice, environmental or governance ideals.

Stacey West

Sewickley