Under the guise of Environmental, Social and Governance criteria, U.K. enterprises are subtly shifting their decision-making, blending fiscal concerns with societal and environmental agendas. In the Telegraph, Emma Webb and Thomas Harris caution that the economic ‘unpersoning’ of critical voices could soon quash dissent. Here’s an excerpt:
‘Environmental, Social and Governance’ (ESG) is fast becoming the most pernicious phrase you’ve never heard of. The underlying idea is that investors shouldn’t just care about the bottom line, but about corporate governance, social impact and environmental damage. It sounds harmless, but has become the latest vector for the woke subversion of our institutions.
ESG has now become embedded in kitemarking systems that rank companies according to their policies on issues like Net Zero and ‘Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’ (EDI). ESG scores can affect how much investment they receive, and so carry financial clout. Organisations from Coutts to the Church of England’s investment bodies have signed up to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, which incorporate ESG considerations into investment practices.
It would be dangerously mistaken to imagine these are distant corporate ‘#BeKind’ policies that don’t affect us. The threat these practices pose to the market and individual freedoms have been compared to cartels and the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit system, in which those with a score too low cannot get a mortgage or travel on high-speed trains.
The Free Speech Union (FSU) reports that one in 20 of its cases are directly related to EDI training. For many, these cases have involved the loss of their livelihoods, and for others disruption to their financial lives. When you see de-banking banks talking about ‘purpose’ and ‘values’, or HR departments dragging an employee through the wringer for ‘wrongspeak’, if you follow the trail far enough, you will likely reach ESG.
This situation may soon get worse. It was reported last week that the organisation B Lab U.K. is lobbying for a change in the law to further embed these practices in British companies. The so-called ‘Better Business Act’ would amend section 172 of the Companies Act 2006 to give directors a duty to consider “people and the planet”, not just profit. As we’ve seen with ESG policies, what this means in practice is the importation of woke ideology.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Watch Thomas Harris, co-author of the above piece, discussing the Free Speech Union’s report on B Corps with Nigel Farage on GB News.
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Some discussion around this very topic occurred yesterday in the ‘hadaway an’shite thread.’ ( High energy bills).
Very much on a par with “racist buildings.” Obviously regional dialects have to be eliminated in the new normal in which populations will be reduced to some horrendous, amorphous, brownish blob speaking “english innit.”
The reality is that a very determined push is now being made to curb any regional identities and dialects reflecting and promoting those quirks have to go. Control the language, control the argument. Control our history, control both the present abd the future. We have a war on many fronts.
As Orwell said, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
Indeed.
I get called “duck” now and again – I don’t feel I am being compared to waterfowl.
“Ay up me duck”
My local tongue in the Midlands!
A visit to a pub in Kirby-in-Ashfield some 40 years ago, after I ordered a round of drinks the barmaid said “‘Ere you’re not from round ‘ere are you dook?” She was correct, the pub also had metered electric pumps with pint-to-line glasses, you don’t see many of those any more.
As for these idiotic “inclusion” edicts, they can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.
I’ve been address as “cock” plenty of times too – I imagine there are sensitive flowers that would be horrified if they heard that.
”Haddaway an’ shite thread”! Haha…. Well we used to say ”hinny” just as much as ”pet”, both being unisex terms of endearment. I just feel like I’m sharing a planet with too many people who behave like they were dropped on their heads at birth. I’m of the opinion that if anyone is still dutifully wedded to any of the agendas being pushed by government, via the globalist-elite control freak shadow-lurkers, then by this point they’re a lost cause. Irreversible neuroplasticity has occurred, in that their brains have been so damaged due to the efficiency of the various MKUltra-type psyops, then rewired the wrong way as it tries to repair itself, that permanent damage has been done. That’s my theory and I’m sticking with it, lol!
Otherwise the alternative is to believe that a term of endearment said for centuries is suddenly deemed genuinely offensive. Honestly, universities are a place where critical thinking skills go to die. Stay well away. You’ll leave with less functioning neurons then when you went in.
Great picture. I’m afraid we’ve had too much Bob & Thelma in recent decades, and not enough Terry.
I completely agree with you, for once. It’s a great photo!
This is simply not true. Geordie women use that word when speaking to men as well. It has nothing to do with sex that its usage lies deep within Geordie spirituality which has a lot to do with old Norwegian. If you’re running a university you aren’t supposed to be an imbecile. Or maybe you are.
This may sound trivial, but when you add up all the trivial it amounts to a mountain of wokery that is about one thing only. Controlling all language to control all arguments.
I’ve got the boxed set of the Likely Lads.
Trying to imagine the script rewritten by wokists.
I can’t.
The days when men were men, women were women and comedy was funny.
Keep speaking your local dialect and if you don’t know it then read up on it. It is a mode of resistance that it difficult to fight. They can’t really say that Geordiespeak is the language of scumbags so as long as you stick to your guns they will have to back down. You can’t sit in some university in a town and tell the natives how to speak just think about the imposture and effrontery of it. To say that you will be fighting a losing battle is putting it mildly.
I still get called “My ‘ansome” and my lover by both men and women when I am in Cornwall and regularly called “hun” or “my lovely” at home in Cheshire / North Wales. Indeed, in the past couple of years, I have even been called “duck” and “love” by men when I have been in the Potteries / East Midlands and Yorkshire.
Should I take offence at being “belittled” by people speaking to me in such familiar (and sexist?) ways, or should I just think that they are colloquially chatting in the local vernacular? Anyone thinking the former is mentally deranged.
Obviously the move itself is outrageous and idiotic,
But another thing that annoys me enormously is the abysmal quality of the English in which these obnoxious people communicate their brain farts.
Embarrassing, considering it’s a sodding University…
The young lady who serves at the local cafe calls me “my lovely” but I strongly suspect that’s not a reflection on my looks.
I saw a poor man from Dudley being asked by a Bristolean bus driver to speak English. He was trying but the yam yam accent is hard to penetrate and full of great mystery, Even Scousers especially Scousers need to fight this fight. They will definitely try to keep it alive. If you have attenuated your accent then speak it more broadly than ever. Use a hundred year old words. We need to bring back the folksy feel.
Why not go the whole hog and advise calling them “persons”.
I am going full instinctive. No particular accent just seeing them as a predatory entity that sees me and everyone else as a predatory entity.. That is where you are really at. There is no going to work getting along and hoping they leave you alone. I would love that but they are predatory. That changes everything.
Orwell would have a field day!
So students and visitors are not affected.
Will Geordie students be directing questions during lectures prefaced by “Well pet” like “Well pet, how does Cartesian dualism impact gender equality?”
In the North East that I knew many years ago, ‘Pet’ wax used by men to women, and by women to men and women..how is it sexist? What about ‘Hinny’ or ‘Man’ equally used as terms of addressing somebody you don’t know. In Glasgow girls and women used to be addressed as ‘Hen’ and men as ‘son’ or ‘Jimmy’…these terms are very rarely heard now, more’s the pity.
Sexiest that’s b****s! The lady who lived next door to my outlaws used to call everyone male and female “Pet” it was lovely and with that geordie absolutely brilliant.
Might have been woke before her time?
Perhaps she was using it in the LGBTQIII+++ gender neutral sense.
Or maybe those brilliant academics in Newcastle University have not realised pets come in a minimum of two genders – male and female.
So it is gender neutral word.
Is a lesbian pussy a ‘pet’? Ask its owner but you might get a smack in the gob: ‘excuse me darlin’ can I call your pussy ‘pet’?’
Not sure how anyone can work out the gender of a pet which identifies as something other male or female. But those academics are very clever and might think of something.
Then of course there are children who think they are cats and dogs so surely it is OK to call them ‘pet’?