Come back to reality, gentlemen managers!

Sergey Skrypnikov, mediamanager

The last few days I accidentally plunged into the subject of ESG* again. I listened to important people, read long reads in top media and brand media. Well! Feeling completely out of touch with reality. Judge for yourself.

Here's one big boss talking about how supply chain transparency is more relevant than ever. Seriously? And why then do our tankers interfere with several grades of oil under the cover of night? He also says that since our possible Asian partners are forced to disclose their chains to European clients, we must also transparently integrate into them... Reality requires looking for ways to “repaint” ourselves, and in discussions it’s all a question of how to open our entire chains . OK!

I also heard that it is important to continue to maintain a high level of corporate governance. That's why our largest companies covered pages with management on their websites. And foreign independent directors like an avalanche “give up their membership cards” and leave the SD. Dividends either boom to pay, then not a boom. Blue-chip stocks on the stock exchange pooh-pooh, flying back and forth, insiders rubbing their hands. Transparency and best practices of the highest level. But we will close our eyes to this, as if these questions do not exist.

Here they started talking about "people's capitalism". Bright, elegant move! What then should be good corporate governance? How will corporate governance change in the new reality? And is it needed in conditions when three-quarters of the country's economy live in a mobilization economy and state capitalism. We won’t hear anything about that discussion, we won’t crawl out of the straitjacket of London ESG dogmas ...

... For many large companies, officials literally directively assign entire enterprises in "new" territories (such a new form of social responsibility), the country itself is expected by unemployment, a drop in incomes of the population, mobilization bleeds the labor market, and in the context of the social block, some ersatz projects about craft fairs, rather than the emerging problems of social stability in the regions where businesses operate.

The climate agenda is also in the top. Hey Greta! Europe does not know how to warm up closer to winter, and thinks about flooding with coal again, and we all sit within the borders of the previous discussion about a new marvelous "green" world. Let's continue to hand over the batteries and sort the garbage...

It would be nice if a really smart thread structured such a conceptual update to this whole “newsletter” with grounding on the realities of today.

* ESG (Eng. Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance) - environmental, social and corporate governance is a set of characteristics of company management, in which the involvement of this company in solving environmental, social and management problems is achieved. It is a set of company performance standards that socially responsible investors use to screen potential investments.