Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics are a kind of social credit system designed to coerce businesses—and, by extension, individuals and all of society—to transform their practices.
Through a carrot-and-stick approach, investors and banks (and soon governments) use ESG to push businesses to change how they function, regardless of what the employees and customers of those businesses want. In many cases, however, corporate executives are all too willing to go along, because they want access to the cheap capital offered by investors and financial institutions.
