WOKE WEDNESDAY: ESG Roundup, ESGauge stat of the week, and Meatball Ron legislated against Larry Fink!

Live from where we are, it’s the ESG Industry’s ONLY weekly woke data podcast, featuring BS-Man Matt Moscardi. In today’s Eggplant Sauce Goo called May 3, 2023: random ESG headlines, a word from our sponsor, and a Woke Data Wars Meatball update

Our show today is being sponsored by ESGauge, your ESG data solutions provider 

DAMION1

Random ESG Headlines

1. CEOs Rule!: Qantas picks first female CEO as Alan Joyce prepares to depart

1. Australia’s flagship carrier, Qantas Airways Ltd, on Tuesday named finance chief Vanessa Hudson as its next chief executive officer, making her the first woman to lead the century-old airline.

2. Hudson will in November take over from Alan Joyce, whose 15 years in the job has made him one of the longest-serving current CEO of a major Australian company, and a high-profile figure in the global aviation industry. Hudson will be one of the few female executives leading a major company in Australia, although rival carrier Virgin Australia also has a woman as its CEO, Jayne Hrdlicka.

3. BS: could our data have predicted this? Maybe?

1. Current board batting .004 in controversies and a scary .060 in earnings… so this should have told us they were building a glass cliff??

2. Woke Data Wars: Bud Light Sales Fall 26% as Transgender Backlash Worsens

1. Beer Business Daily reported Sunday that Bud LIght’s off-premise sales volume–the amount of beer sold outside of restaurants and bars–was down 26.1% from a year earlier in the week ended April 22, based on scan data. Volumes were down 21.1% in the prior week, while so far this year, Bud Light volumes are down 8%.

3. Deepfake Meat by Deepfake Milk: A mysterious website exposed Oatly conspiracies and scandals. It turns out, the company was behind it.

1. Last fall, a website called "F*ck Oatly" appeared. It detailed the company's PR mess-ups and scandals, including its legal battle with a smaller plant-based brand and its sale of oat residue to pig farms.

1. The entity behind it: Oatly itself.

2. "Why would we build such a website? That's a great question!" the opening paragraphs of F*ck Oatly read. "For starters, it's super convenient to have the latest boycotts and criticisms all in one place. "But more importantly, we're not the type of company to hide from moments like these. We see all the negative headlines, posts and petitions as an inevitable consequence of trying to create positive societal change."

3. Visitors to the website can click through to webpages outlining several of Oatly's missteps over the years.

1. One focuses on "Glebe Gate," or Oatly's lawsuit against UK-based Glebe Farm, which makes a rival oat beverage called "Pure Oaty." Oatly sued the company, claiming that the product's name was too similar to its own — a move that drew public objections from some Oatly consumers.

1. The entry, like others on the website, takes an irreverent tone. "In the end, we lost the court case, which was deeply upsetting to our lawyer, because lawyers like to win their cases and then retire to their studies," the Glebe Gate page says.

2. Another page, called "The Residue Ruckus," explains a 2018 incident when Oatly sold oat byproducts from its production line to a pig farm. The decision drew criticism from vegan consumers, the website says, since the oat residue was used to feed pigs that would later be slaughtered and sold for meat.

3. Toward the bottom of the website, an icon of a pack of dynamite sits with the text: "New scandal coming soon."

4. Oatly's latest campaign features a similar option. If you don't like F*ck Oatly, there's F*ck F*ck Oatly, another website where visitors can click a button confirming their disapproval of the website.

4. Stakeholders Rule!

1. Strike!

1. Hollywood Writers Go On Strike After Talks With Studios Fail

1. More than 10,000 unionized film and television writers have gone on strike, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced on Monday evening after negotiations between the union and the studios failed, marking the first such work stoppage by writers in 15 years.

2. The strike follows six weeks of talks between the union and the trade group Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents major Hollywood studios and streaming platforms including Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Discovery-Warner, NBC Universal, Paramount and Sony.

3. One of the major concerns for the WGA has been the growing pivot towards streaming services and its impact on the traditional residual payments structure—which included payments from home video sales and syndication on TV.

2. In Charlotte’s Biggest Labor Protest In Two Decades, 500 American Pilots Decry Slow Pace Of Contract Talks

1. In Charlotte’s largest labor demonstration in at least two decades, about 500 American Airlines pilots protested the slow pace of contract talks near an entrance to Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Monday.

2. The contract became amendable in January 2020. Although they were delayed by the pandemic, talks between the carrier and the Allied Pilots Association, which represents 15,000 American pilots, were thought to be nearing an end when Delta signed a deal with its pilots in early March. But two months later, neither American nor Southwest nor United have reached deals with their pilots.

2. Enslaved labor

1. Nike, Adidas, Shein, Temu Sent Letter From House China Committee About Forced Labor

1. The Republican and Democratic Party leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sent letters by email to the CEOs of two American companies and two Chinese companies — sent to Adidas, Nike, Shein and Temu —  on Tuesday asking them about forced labor and banned cotton products in the goods they sell to U.S. consumers. 

2. At the heart of the matter is whether the apparel companies are in compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, signed into law by President Biden in Dec. 2021. Cotton from Xinjiang, where the majority of Uyghur Muslims live, has been banned since last year following restrictions on cotton products by at least one Xinjiang-based company in 2021 by Customs.

2. 10-year-old children were found working at a Louisville McDonald’s until 2 a.m.

1. Two 10-year-old children were found working at a Louisville McDonald’s restaurant — sometimes until 2 a.m. — the US Department of Labor said Tuesday.

2. The revelation was part of an investigation into the child labor law violations in the Southeast. The agency also found three franchisees that own more than 60 McDonald’s locations in Kentucky, Indiana, Maryland and Ohio, “employed 305 children to work more than the legally permitted hours and perform tasks prohibited by law for young workers,” the Labor Department said in a statement.

3. Dystopia is coming for your lack of skills!

1. The skills gap is so big that nearly half of workers will need to retrain this decade.

1. Between the disruption of the pandemic, ChatGPT, offshoring, and wave after wave of layoffs, the job market is evolving more rapidly than most agile workers can keep up with.

2. Nearly 70 million new jobs will be created worldwide, and 83 million will be eliminated by 2027, predicts the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs report.

3. These 10 skills are most in demand:

1. Creative thinking

2. Analytical thinking

3. Technological literacy

4. Curiosity and lifelong learning

5. Resilience, flexibility, and agility

6. Systems thinking

7. A.I. and big data

8. Motivation and self-awareness

9. Talent management

10. Service orientation and customer service

4. Alternative Democracy

1. Coca-Cola shareholders vote down proposal that targets pro-life states

1. Coca-Cola shareholders recently voted against a proposal to conduct a survey into how state laws restricting abortion impact the company’s business performance. 

2. “Shareholders request a public report detailing any known and potential risks or costs to the company caused by enacted or proposed state policies severely restricting reproductive rights, and detailing any strategies beyond litigation and legal compliance that the company may deploy to minimize or mitigate these risks”

3. The proposal was introduced by As You Saw, a nonprofit that promotes ESG policies in corporations.

4. 13% said YES

2. Your Equity, Diversity & Inclusion programs “are deeply racist [and], sexist” because they “devalue merit” which is our cheeky way of saying more black people and women people are less excellent proposal at Kellogg Company

1. 2%

MATT1

• Meatball Ron Signs Document That Says Things

• “The term "pecuniary factor" means a factor that the Chief Financial Officer, or other party authorized to invest on his or her behalf, prudently determines is expected to have a material effect on the risk or returns of an investment based on appropriate investment horizons consistent with applicable investment objectives and funding policy. The term does not include the consideration or furtherance of any social, political, or ideological interests.”

• READ MY MIND ABOUT WHAT’S WOKE - “Furtherance”

• An oversight group will provide: An attestation, under penalty of perjury, stating that the organization has complied [with being pecuniary]

• ATTEST TO NOT BEING WOKE

• By December 15, 2023, and by December 15 of each odd-numbered year thereafter, each retirement system or plan shall file a comprehensive report detailing and reviewing the governance policies concerning decision-making in vote decisions and adherence to the fiduciary standards required of such retirement system or plan under this section, including the exercise of shareholder rights.

• PROVE YOU’RE NOT WOKE report

• All investment advisors must ALSO “prove” they comply AND add the following language when they 

• NO ONE IN FLORIDA is allowed to issue an “ESG bond”, get a bond verified by “ESG” criteria, pay for “ESG-ing” things…

• Florida can’t hire MSCI (sadface)

• Here’s the best part: THE ANTI FINK LETTER LEGISLATION - he fucking legislated a letter by a private company he doesn’t like:

• Any written communication made by the investment manager to a company in which such manager invests public funds on behalf of a governmental entity must include the following disclaimer in a conspicuous location if such communication discusses social, political, or ideological interests; subordinates the interests of the company's shareholders to the interest of another entity; or advocates for the interest of an entity other than the company's shareholders: The views and opinions expressed in this communication are those of the sender and do not reflect the views and opinions of the people of the State of Florida. The contract may be unilaterally terminated at the option of the governmental entity if the investment manager does not include the disclaimer required in paragraph (a).

• BANK LOANS FOR EVERYONE

• Can’t be denied a loan because of religion or political speech or:

• Because they own guns

• Because they sell fossil fuels!

• Because they cut down forests!

• Because they fail environmental standards

• You can’t use corporate board characteristics!

A well armed cult leader who sells red cans of gasoline to light people’s houses on fire and sits on the board of a local white power organization cannot be denied a loan on those bases…