On Tuesday, the Arizona Treasurer prohibited the use of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scoring when determining investments. ESG scoring is comparable to a social justice scoring, sometimes dubbed a “social credit score.”
Revisions to the Arizona Treasurer’s Investment Policy Statement (IPS) declared that ESG factors were non-pecuniary and therefore had no material effect on the financial risk or return of an investment.
Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee and the members of the Board of Investment approved a new Investment Policy Statement. The adopted policy ensures that ESG ratings have no place in Arizona's investment making decisions.
Treasurer Kimberly Yee declared that ESG scoring enables malicious government manipulation of the private sector.
“Biden’s Administration uses big government overreach to manipulate the private sector in picking winners and losers based on radical ESG policies,” wrote Yee. “We must protect American free market principles and not allow environmental or social goals to dictate how taxpayer monies are managed.”
Biden's Administration uses big government overreach to manipulate the private sector in picking winners and losers based on radical ESG policies. We must protect American free market principles & not allow environmental or social goals to dictate how taxpayer monies are managed. https://t.co/Zqj25nDHoS
This wasn’t the first time this month that Yee took action to counter the effects of ESG scoring. Last week, the treasurer gave a major global financial firm, Morningstar, 30 days to prove that they weren’t complicit in its subsidiary company’s alleged boycott of Israel due to ESG policies. Without sufficient proof, Yee will place Morningstar on the state’s list of prohibited investments.
Yee’s opponent in the upcoming November election, Arizona State Senate Minority Whip Martín Quezada (D-Glendale), responded that he supports ESG scoring.
The Arizona state legislature attempted to outlaw ESG scoring discrimination through HB2656 during this past legislative session. However, State Representatives Joel John (R-Buckeye) and Michelle Udall killed the bill. John declared that he voted against the bill in accordance with his belief that such discriminations don’t exist.
However, firearms industry business owners testified earlier in the legislative session about the need for another bill, HB2473, because banks refused to do business with them because they deal with firearms. One testimony came from Ruger Firearms VPO Tim Powney, who shared that Bank of America cut short their decades-long relationship due to his being in the firearms industry. That decision was likely based on ESG criteria.
The concept of ESG dates back to 2004 when former United Nations (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annan gathered just over 50 of the world’s top financial institution CEOs to discuss influencing markets via ideological criteria. Early prototypes of ESG scoring occurred through the New York Stock Exchange’s Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2006, then the Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative (SSEI) in 2007.
Almost all major companies rely on ESG criteria. Many model their ESG scoring systems after the Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics developed by the World Economic Forum (WEF), a globalist lobbying organization. “Stakeholder capitalism” is the attempt to modify corporations’ behaviors to benefit stakeholders instead of shareholders, necessitating corporate cooperation with government: something Yee claimed allows government overreach and free market subversion.
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The WEF claims that ESG criteria are financially material. They argue that poor ESG scoring played a role in 15 out of 17 S&P 500 bankruptcies that occurred between 2005 and 2015.
Arizona may place another major company on a list of prohibited investments for allegedly boycotting the state of Israel. It would be the second company deemed in violation of Arizona’s ban against Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) of Israel. Arizona already placed Unilever on that list over the Israel BDS enacted by its subsidiary, Ben & Jerry’s.
Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee gave the Chicago-based financial services company, Morningstar, 30 days to prove that they weren’t boycotting Israel. In a press release on Monday, Yee shared that her office suspected Morningstar of boycotting because its subsidiary, Sustainalytics, employed environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) policies that punished companies doing business in Israel with poorer scoring.
Arizona doesn’t have any public funds invested in Morningstar presently.
Yee said that ESG-focused companies benefitting from taxpayer dollars victimize other companies in order to advance “woke political gamesmanship.”
“ESG ratings are a political scorecard, not a financial scorecard,” said Yee. “I will not allow companies to promote policies that are antisemitic and discriminatory efforts against Israel, which is America’s longtime friend and ally, and a significant trade partner with Arizona.”
AZ Treasurer Kimberly Yee gave Morningstar 30 days to prove their ESG ratings do not violate Arizona law, stating that she "will not allow companies to promote policies that are discriminatory efforts against Israel."
— Office of the Arizona State Treasurer (@AZTreasury) August 23, 2022
In her letter, Yee pointed Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor to his company’s own 117-page report investigating Sustainalytics released in early June. Morningstar insisted in an affiliated press release that it didn’t support boycotts of Israel, and cleared Sustainalytics of boycotting accusations. However, Yee said that pages 69-73, 86-93, and 97-99 of the report proved otherwise.
“ESG, in itself, is a subjective exercise and suffers from inherent bias. While [the] report says there was no bias against Israel, that is not the question presented to us under Arizona law,” wrote Yee. “The very fact that Sustainalytics has chosen to review companies doing business in Israel under the guise of its ESG ratings system, violates Arizona law as your company is ‘performing actions that are not intended to limit commercial relations with entities doing business in Israel.’”
ESG began in 2004 when former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan convened over 50 CEOs from the top financial institutions in a bid to influence markets. Annan’s coordination prompted the rollout of early ESG models, such as the New York Stock Exchange’s Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2006 and the Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative (SSEI) in 2007.
Today, ESG models award scoring to measure companies based on equity-based initiatives. For example, environmental criteria might include waste reduction efforts or natural resource conservation; social criteria might include restorative justice initiatives or reproductive care funding like abortions; and governance criteria might include weighing issues that impact company stakeholders.
Unilever reversed Ben & Jerry’s boycott in late June. They repudiated the ice cream company’s actions, insinuating that they were antisemitic. However, Yee didn’t reverse the state’s divestment.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Arizona’s largest newspaper, the Arizona Republic, doesn’t put up a paywall for any articles on its Spanish sister publication, “La Voz” — even if they’re translated versions of subscriber-only articles on its main page.
When AZ Free News reached out to Gannett’s customer service, one of their agents insisted that readers needed a subscription to access any version of a paywalled story. AZ Free News then reached out to spokespersons with Gannett, Arizona Republic’s parent company, to ask about the rationale for not requiring Spanish readers to pay subscriptions. They didn’t respond by press time.
En Arizona, la mayoría de las clínicas que ofrecían servicios de aborto ya cerraron a raíz del fallo de la Corte Suprema, eliminando casi por completo el acceso al aborto en el estado. https://t.co/qPF6dqVD85
La Voz launched in 2000, the same year that Arizona Republic was acquired by Gannett, a Virginia-based mass media company that owns USA Today, a national paper, along with over 250 papers across 44 states. The only states that Gannett listed no paper ownership in: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Nebraska, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Though there isn’t an explicit reason given for the free access to La Voz, a plausible explanation might have to do with the newspaper chain’s social justice commitments.
Gannett is one of many companies across the globe committed to “ESG,” or “Environmental, Social, and Governance” criteria that amount to a “social credit score.” Internationally, there are over 70 major companies committed to ESG criteria. The world’s greatest asset manager, BlackRock, serves as one of 100 strategic partners behind the globalist lobbying organization that invented ESG, the World Economic Forum (WEF); BlackRock is the largest shareholder in Gannett by far.
As part of those ESG criteria, Gannett has committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in hiring and media coverage. Last September, Gannett also announced that it created 20 national and 40 regional positions exclusively focused on social justice issues, with more to come.
The company pledged to reshape its workforce to mirror the nation’s demographics and communities where its papers exist by the end of 2025. Per Gannett’s latest data, the Arizona Republic successfully neared this goal in several demographics last year. From 2020 to 2021, the newspaper reduced its White journalists from 66 to 62 percent, gaining on its community makeup of 55 percent; reduced its Black journalists from 7 percent to 5 percent, matching the 5 percent community makeup;
However, the Arizona Republic fell short in several demographics. Though it increased its Hispanic/Latino journalists from nearly 15 percent to 18 percent, the community makeup totals 30 percent. And, it barely reduced its Asian journalists, hovering around 7 percent when the community makeup is just under 4 percent. It actually increased its Native American journalist hires, from just over 2 percent to nearly 3 percent, though the community makeup is just under 2 percent.
Gannett was acquired by New Media Investment Group in 2019. The firm is controlled by Fortress Investment Group, another private equity firm, who is owned by Softbank, a Japanese conglomerate.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Once again, the existence of a decades-long strategy to suffocate political opposition through social justice-oriented investing criteria, or “social credit scores” determined by Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria, was affirmed on a global platform, just months after State Representative Joel John (R-Buckeye) denied its existence. John helped kill legislation preventing ESG discrimination, HB2656, because he said such a problem didn’t exist.
“I’ve asked the sponsor to give me real-world examples of why this bill is needed, and I didn’t get that. I even got a call from my cousin, who doesn’t live in my district, telling me that this bill is needed and to pass it right now and I said ‘why is it a problem man? Help me understand,’” said John. “For those of us who happen to be in this chamber, but don’t live, eat, and breathe politics 24/7, when I’m not in this chamber I’m out in a remote area working on some irrigation project, but my cousin said this is going to negatively affect farmers. This is going to affect our community, and I said, ‘Oh wow. Would you please do me a favor and talk to some of those guys as to why this is a problem. That would really help me. So, I never did hear back.”
John didn’t respond to AZ Free News’ request for comment.
Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks affirmed the reality of ESG discrimination in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson last week. Oaks explained that ESG was a “problematic” outgrowth of something investors call “socially responsible investing,” or “SRI.”
“ESG engages with companies and engages with the market to drive a political outcome. That’s why it’s so problematic,” said Oaks.
Oaks claimed that ESG was one of the reasons why Americans are facing high gas prices. He explained that there was a supply issue because companies lacked capital. Oaks attributed the 90 percent drop in investments — from 59 funds totaling $46.6 billion in 2015 to 11 funds totaling $4.6 billion in 2021 — to ESG discrimination.
“People have decided that they do not want to participate in the fossil fuel industry, and so they are cutting off capital,” said Oaks.
The concept of ESG dates back to 2004, as Forbes reported in a 2008 investigative piece on the subject, when the former United Nations (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annan invited over 50 of the top financial institution CEOs at the time to an initiative to influence markets using ESG screens. Reports produced by this initiative coining the term ESG prompted the New York Stock Exchange to roll out its Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2006 and the Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative (SSEI) in 2007.
At present, companies that apply ESG scoring look to Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics developed by the World Economic Forum (WEF), a pro-globalism lobbying organization, to determine their measure of ESG enforcement.
Over 70 major international companies covering nearly all aspects of consumerism use the WEF metrics system, among them a number of financial services companies (emphasis added): Bank of America, Bayer, Boston Consulting Group, bp, Dell Technologies, Deloitte, Fidelity International, Heineken, Hyundai, IBM, Kia, Lord, Abbett & Co., Mastercard, Mitsubishi, Moderna, NASDAQ, Nestle, Paypal, Salesforce, Sony, and Unilever.
The world’s greatest asset manager, BlackRock, is listed as one of WEF’s 100 strategic partners. Also listed are Amazon, AstraZeneca, Chevron, Cisco, Citi, Coca-Cola, General Electric (GE), Goldman Sachs, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Hitachi, Honeywell, HP, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Meta (Facebook), McKinsey & Company, Morgan Stanley, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, S&P Global, Uber, UPS, Verizon, Volvo, Volkswagen, and Western Union. (Again, we added emphasis to those financial services companies of interest).
Although the WEF referred to their metrics system as one related to “capitalism,” their use of the term is contested. WEF Founder Klaus Schwab meant for his redefined version of “capitalism” to be understood through a term he coined, “stakeholder capitalism,” which posits that modern enterprises must serve those who benefit from corporate behavior, stakeholders, in addition to shareholders to achieve long-term growth and prosperity. Hence, social credit scores.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Two House Republicans voted against a bill to prevent banks from discriminating against vendors or customers for their political affiliations or values determined by a social credit score. HB2656 failed 28-31; the bill sponsor, State Representative Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) voted against the bill alongside two of his Republican colleagues with track records for voting against bills supporting Republican Party values: State Representative Joel John (R-Buckeye) and State Representative Michelle Udall (R-Mesa). Hoffman changed his vote in order to file a motion to reconsider the bill within 14 days’ time, which was approved.
John’s primary argument for not supporting the bill concerned the fact that he doesn’t engage in politics outside of the legislature, and that he doesn’t know of any real examples of banks discriminating against individuals for their affiliations or values. In doing so, John criticized his cousin, who reportedly called John to urge him to support the bill.
“I’ve asked the sponsor to give me real world examples of why this bill is needed, and I didn’t get that. I even got a call from my cousin, who doesn’t live in my district, telling me that this bill is needed and to pass it right now and I said ‘why is it a problem man? Help me understand,’” said John. “For those of us who happen to be in this chamber, but don’t live, eat, and breathe politics 24/7, when I’m not in this chamber I’m out in a remote area working on some irrigation project, but my cousin said this is going to negatively affect farmers. This is going to affect our community, and I said, ‘Oh wow. Would you please do me a favor and talk to some of those guys as to why this is a problem. That would really help me. So, I never did hear back.”
One Republican representative rebutted to John’s assertion that there weren’t any real-world examples of this discrimination occurring in Arizona. State Representative Jeff Weninger (R-Chandler) relayed how multiple gun vendors statewide informed him that banks and financial services like Paypal won’t facilitate credit card transactions for items like guns due to their policies.
“In my points, I’m not going to throw my cousin under the bus like somebody just did a minute ago,” said Weninger. “[Banking and other financial transaction discrimination] is something that is gaining steam and everywhere I go and talk to people, more and more people are knowing about it. But pretty soon it could be too late and have already run us over as a state.”
Hoffman explained that his bill was prompted by the rise of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG): an enforcement method for authoritarianism advocated heavily by powerful globalist organizations like the World Economic Forum (WEF). The ESG concept is a part of a movement called “The Great Reset:” a goal to instill “stakeholder capitalism,” aka corporatism, a fascist rule globally. Hoffman explained that the ESG factor worked as a social credit score.
“It is an inside-outside strategy designed to force companies and individuals to adopt a woke and oftentimes globalist agenda primarily embraced by those in the ruling class. They do this by assigning an ESG score or sometimes known as a ‘social impact criteria score,’” said Hoffman.
Hoffman added that the legislation was a moral imperative, citing the Canadian government freezing protestors’ bank accounts and financial apps in order to end their Freedom Convoy.
“Think it couldn’t happen in America? Think again. The top five banks in the US — the very same banks that US taxpayers bailed out in 2009 to the tune of 30 trillion dollars — have all admitted to using ESG scores to make decisions about customers. This means that if they deem your small business isn’t green enough, woke enough, or compliant enough, they’ll lower your ESG score which could hurt or eliminate your ability to access banking services, revolving capital, financing, and much more,” said Hoffman. “ESG discrimination is a freight train barreling down the tracks at the American people and it’s effects will be devastating, which is why I’m fighting like hell to protect the people of Arizona and stop this disgusting, anti-American practice dead in its tracks.”
This isn’t the first issue in which John and Udall didn’t agree with their fellow Republicans. Earlier this month, John voted with Democrats attempting to kill a bill expanding parental rights.
John and Udall are also part of the Republican trio that killed a bill to expand school choice last year. Instead, John supported a bill this session to require additional testing requirements to access school choice, backed by the other two trio members: Udall and Joanne Osborne (R-Goodyear).
Last year, John voted against a bill to require disclosure of personal information on early ballot affidavits. He and Udall also voted alongside House Democrats to force a vote on a resolution allowing illegal immigrants who’ve resided in Arizona at least two years and graduated from an Arizona high school to receive in-state tuition. That measure will appear on the ballot this November.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
