The CEOs of companies like Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Kate Spade, whose brand endorsements turned controversial trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney into today’s woke up “girl”, usually are not just signaling virtue.
They provide out lucrative deals to those that were once considered fringe celebrities because they need to – or risk failing an important social credibility check that might break or break their business.
The stake is them Corporate Equality Index — or CEI — a rating that’s overseen by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ+ political lobbying group in the world.
HRC that has received thousands and thousands from the George Soros Open Society Foundation amongst other things, it issues report cards for America’s largest corporations through the CEI: awarding or subtracting points for a way well companies are compliant with what HRC calls “Evaluation criteria“.
Companies that rating a maximum of 100 points in total win the coveted title of “Best Workplace for LGBTQ Equality”. Fifteen of Fortune’s top 20 companies received 100% rankings last yr, in keeping with HRC data.
Based on the latest report, greater than 840 US companies have achieved high CEI scores.
HRC, which was established in 1980 and launched the ISE in 2002, is led by Kelley Robinson, who was appointed president in 2022 and served as a political organizer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
HRC lists 4 fundamental evaluation criteriaeach with its own long subsets in order that companies can gain – or lose – CEI points.
The fundamental categories are: ‘Protecting the workforce’, ‘Inclusive advantages’, ‘Promoting an inclusive culture’, ‘Corporate social responsibility and responsible citizenship’.
An organization may lose CEI points if it fails to fulfill HRC’s request to “integrate intersectionality into skilled development, skills-based training, or other training” or if it doesn’t use “a supplier diversity program with demonstrated efforts to incorporate LGBTQ+ certified suppliers.”
James Lindsay, a political podcaster who runs a site called Recent discoursestold The Post that the human rights campaign manages the CEI rating “like extortion, like the mafia.
Nor does he sit passively. HRC annually sends representatives to the corporation telling them what things they should make visible in the company. They provide them an inventory of demands, and in the event that they don’t, there is a threat that you simply won’t keep your CEI rating.”
ISE is the lesser known a part of the heyday ESG (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance) “ethical investing” movement. increasingly pressured by the country’s three largest investment firms. ESG funds put money into companies that oppose fossil fuels, seek unionization, and prioritize racial and gender equality over merit in hiring and board selection.
Because of this, some American CEOs are more concerned with pleasing BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street Bank—who’re amongst the top shareholders of most U.S. publicly traded corporations (including Nike, Anheuser-Busch, and Kate Spade)—than annoying conservatives, multiple sources told The Post.
This week, Mulvaney’s recent Bud Light and Nike ad campaigns ruffled the feathers of critics, from country star Travis Tritt and Kid Rock — who tweeted a video of him shooting Bud Light cases — to Olympians and even Caitlyn Jenner, who spoke about Nike: “It is a shame to see such an iconic American company go away from bed! … It is a scandal.”
Mulvaney, 26, who transitioned from male to female in early March 2021, has reportedly earned over one million dollars from recommendations, including fashion and cosmetic brands, including Ulta Beauty, Haus Labs and CeraVe, in addition to Crest and InstaCart.
She also gained 10 million followers on TikTok.
But neither Kid Rock nor even Mulvaney are the ones America’s top executives are attempting to impress, experts say.
“All big fund managers like BlackRock are applying this ESG orthodoxy by putting pressure on top corporate executives and boards and in lots of cases determining executive pay and bonuses and who gets re-elected or reappointed to boards” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s running for president as a Republican and is the creator of “Woke Inc.: Inside America’s Social Justice Scam,” he told The Post. “They’ll make your life very difficult in the event you don’t follow their plans.”
In 2018, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who oversees $8.6 trillion in assets and was named “ESG facewrote an infamous letter to CEOs titled “A way of purposewhich pushed through a “recent management model” according to ESG values.
“Society requires that companies, each private and non-private, serve social purposes,” Fink wrote. “With the intention to prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial results, but additionally show the way it makes a positive contribution to society.”
Fink also reported that “if an organization doesn’t engage with the community and doesn’t have a way of purpose, it is going to “ultimately lose its license to operate from key stakeholders.”
In December, Florida amassed $2 billion in state assets managed by BlackRock. “I feel it’s undemocratic for major asset managers to make use of their power to influence social outcomes,” Governor Ron DeSantis said at the time.
Fink denied that ESG was political in nature, but key employees managing his ESG operations worked in the Obama administration and donated to Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
In his first veto, President Joe Biden last month rejected a GOP-backed bill that sought to dam ESG investment – especially in pension funds, where critics say US pension funds might be dedicated to a radical left-wing agenda.
Protesters in Paris selected the BlackRock office there this week attributable to the role of the company in the management and privatization of pensionsthat are at the heart of the French government’s recent retirement age reforms.
ESG and CEI advocates argue that adhering to socially conscious values when investing and managing an organization will make the world a greater place. Not everyone agrees.
Derek Kreifels is co-founder and CEO of the National Foundation of Financial Officers, one in every of several CFOs combating ESG at the national level.
He calls ESG “a highly subjective political rating that infiltrates all walks of life, imposing progressive policies on abnormal Americans.” [and] which leads to higher prices at the distributor and in the store.’
The Corporate Equality Index is an ominous cog in the ESG wheel, Kreifels told The Post.
“The issue with measures like CEI and its big brother, ESG, is that they carry incentive structure beyond business boundaries, often in a way that conflicts with fiduciary duty,” Kreifels said. “Whether or not Anheuser-Busch tried to money in on Dylan Mulvaney’s TikTok by following or chasing higher CEI rankings for integration, the backlash has been significant and shareholders to whom the company is beholden will feel a pinch.”