Florida Governor DeSantis Tackling ESG Mirage Of Financial & Investment Services
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Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) promotes legislation to ban “woke” ESG-focused banking and financial planning, in the video published on Feb 13, 2023, by Forbes Breaking News, as “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Puts Forward Legislation To Combat ESG ‘Woke’ Banking“, below:
Governor Ron DeSantis Announces Legislation to Protect Floridians from the Woke ESG Financial Scam, in italics, below:
NAPLES, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis was joined by Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and House Speaker Paul Renner to announce comprehensive legislation to protect Floridians from the woke environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) movement that continues to proliferate throughout the financial sector. More on today’s proposal can be found here. To watch the full press conference, click here.
“Today’s announcement builds on my commitment to protect consumers’ investments and their ability to access financial services in the Free State of Florida,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “By applying arbitrary ESG financial metrics that serve no one except the companies that created them, elites are circumventing the ballot box to implement a radical ideological agenda. Through this legislation, we will protect the investments of Floridians and the ability of Floridians to participate in the economy.”
“Governor DeSantis and Speaker Renner have been leaders on this critical issue and it is wonderful to be with them today to discuss concrete steps the Legislature will take this session to protect the retirement funds of state and local employees by guarding against misguided ESG policies,” said Senate President Kathleen Passidomo. “We want our state employees and local employees – including many classrooms teachers and law enforcement who are part of the state retirement system – to have a strong retirement they can count on. We are going to make certain that state funds are managed to prioritize the highest return on investment, as our retirees and taxpayers expect.”
“The goal of corporate activism seen in environmental, social, and governance investing (ESG) is to bypass democracy and transform capitalism to serve an ideological agenda,” said House Speaker Paul Renner. “We will not allow these martini millionaires to push unsafe and unsound investment practices that silence debate in the political process, weaken investment strategies for Florida retirees, and discriminate against any individual’s beliefs. I am proud to stand with Governor DeSantis and Senate President Passidomo to put taxpayers, investors, and Florida retirees first.”
ESG is a direct threat to the American economy and individual economic freedom. This attempt by the corporate elite to discriminate against those who do not follow a particular ideological agenda will be outlawed in Florida. For more information on the legislative proposal, click here.
The legislative proposal seeks to protect Floridians from the woke ESG financial scam by:
- Prohibiting big banks, trusts, and other financial institutions from discriminating against customers for their religious, political, or social beliefs — including their support for securing the border, owning a firearm, and increasing our energy independence.
- Prohibiting the financial sector from considering so called “Social Credit Scores” in banking and lending practices that aim to prevent Floridians from obtaining loans, lines of credit, and bank accounts.
- Prohibiting banks that engage in corporate activism from holding government funds as a Qualified Public Depository (QPD).
- Prohibiting the use of ESG in all investment decisions at the state and local level, ensuring that fund managers only consider financial factors that maximize the highest rate of return.
- Prohibiting all state and local entities, including direct support organizations, from considering, giving preference to, or requesting information about ESG as part of the procurement and contracting process.
- Prohibiting the use of ESG factors by state and local governments when issuing bonds, including a contract prohibition on rating agencies whose ESG ratings negatively impact the issuer’s bond ratings.
- Directing the Attorney General and Commissioner of Financial Regulation to enforce these provisions to the fullest extent of the law.
The proposed legislation builds upon actions taken by Governor DeSantis and his fellow trustees of the State Board of Administration (SBA) to remove any ESG considerations from state investment decisions, ensuring that all investment decisions focus solely on maximizing the highest rate of return.
To better understand what ESG investing is all about, please refer to the Environmental, social and corporate governance topic in wikipedia, in italics, below:
Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), also known as environmental, social, and governance,[1] is a framework designed to be embedded into an organization’s strategy that considers the needs and ways in which to generate value for all organizational stakeholders (such as employees, customers and suppliers and financiers).
ESG corporate reporting can be used by stakeholders to assess the material sustainability-related risks and opportunities relevant to an organization. Investors may also use ESG data beyond assessing material risks to the organization in their evaluation of enterprise value, specifically by designing models based on assumptions that the identification, assessment and management of sustainability-related risks and opportunities in respect to all organizational stakeholders leads to higher long-term risk-adjusted return.[2] Organizational stakeholders include but are not limited to customers, suppliers, employees, leadership, and the environment.[3]
Since 2020, there has been accelerating pressure from the United Nations to overlay ESG data with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), based on their work, which began in the 1980s.[4]
The term ESG was popularly used first in a 2004 report titled “Who Cares Wins”, which was a joint initiative of financial institutions at the invitation of UN.[5] In less than 20 years, the ESG movement has grown from a corporate social responsibility initiative launched by the United Nations into a global phenomenon representing more than US$30 trillion in assets under management.[6] In the year 2019 alone, capital totaling US$17.67 billion flowed into ESG-linked products, an almost 525 percent increase from 2015, according to Morningstar, Inc.[7] Critics claim ESG linked-products have not had and are unlikely to have the intended impact of raising the cost of capital for polluting firms,[8] and have accused the movement of greenwashing.[9]
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday announced a series of new proposals aimed at cracking down on the use of Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria in investment decisions involving state and local funds. Semafor’s Liz Hoffman joins Morning Joe to discuss, in the video published on Feb 15, 2023, by MSNBC, as “DeSantis unveils more crackdowns on ‘woke’ investment practices“, below:
In this video, the problems with ESG and why it is one of the greatest threats to the financial world in a long time are explained. ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance. Companies rated as ESG investments are supposed to be doing things that are good for the environment and social causes. The problem is that ESG, according to WolfesAndFinance, is not a certification, there is no set standards, and a lot of discretion on who gets the label and who does not. A lot of times, the decisions on who gets the ESG label are being decided based on political views, in the video published on Aug 28, 2022, by WolvesAndFinance, as “The Problems with ESG“, below:.
It is amazing to find out that Tesla Inc. (an American multinational automotive, artificial intelligence, and clean energy company) is not one of the companies with ESG label and yet has ExxonMobil (an American multinational oil and gas corporation) as one of the top 10 ESG companies.
Jimmy Patronis, Florida CFO, joins ‘Squawk Box’ to discuss the growing anti-ESG movement, how much money the state pulled from the Blackrock investment and more, in the video published on Feb 22, 2023, by CNBC Television, as “Here’s why Florida pulled $2 billion out of Blackrock’s ESG fund“, below:
A slew of Republican-led states are attempting to prevent financial institutions from using state funds for environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing—which helps screen investments based on socially conscious factors—in a push that intensifies GOP attempts to challenge a “woke” practice that’s garnered widespread adoption on Wall Street and trillions of dollars in investor funds, in the video published on Feb 24, 2023, by Forbes Breaking News, as “What Is ESG Investing – And Why Ron DeSantis Is Trying To Ban It From Retirement Funds“, below:
MSCI, the largest ESG rating company, doesn’t even try to measure the impact of a corporation on the world. It’s all about whether the world might mess with the bottom line, in the video published on Dec 20, 2021, by Bloomberg Originals, as “ESG Ratings Are Not What They Seem“, below:
Elected officials, shareholders, and the American people are uniting against the undemocratic “Environmental, Social and Governance” (ESG) investment framework the elite left has weaponized against them. Federal legislation has been introduced that would require investment advisers to prioritize financial returns over non-pecuniary interests. State treasurers are challenging the financial institutions that discriminate against vital industries in their states. Customers are pushing back on “Woke Corporations.” Shareholders are engaging CEOs directly to ask why investment firms are pouring billions of American pension dollars into China’s economy and propping up communist leaders. And thousands of Americans are taking to the arcane process of submitting comments in opposition to the SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rule—the latest attempt by the Biden administration to compel corporate America to advance an agenda they could never pass with the support of the American people, in the video published on Aug 8, 2022, by The Heritage Foundation, as “The Beginning of the End of ESG“, below:
We are very honored that the next guest of PFI Talks was Aswath Damodaran, Professor of Finance at Stern School of Business at New York University, in the video published on Nov 29, 2021, by Prague Finance Institute, as “Aswath Damodaran: “ESG is the most oversold and overhyped concept in the history of business.” below:
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
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