Governments have always regulated companies, but in recent years this has extended to encompass areas which are not limited to the business of doing business.
Ministers have realised that they can use public companies to advance their wider policy objectives on matters such as diversity and inclusion, respect for human rights, climate change and pay. To do this, they have used a combination of law, regulation, and moral suasion; they have also enlisted investors and lenders as their enforcers.
Thus was the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) industry created. In 17 of the 19 years that I have been a CEO of a public company, meeting thousands of investors, ESG barely got a mention; conversations were about performance, markets and strategy. In the last two
