Archives: ESG

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Maryland’s New Corporate Diversity Law Violates the Equal Protection Clause

Corporate diversity is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.  Maryland has published, for public comment, regulations implementing the corporate diversity law enacted by the legislature in 2021. But the proposed regulations are unconstitutional on their face, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and Article 24 of the Maryland … Continue Reading

Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to be Enforced June 21

Congress passed, and on December 23, 2021 President Biden signed into law, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The new law that will be enforced beginning June 21, 2022 has implications for imported cotton and tomatoes and most significantly for solar panels. The Act, codified at 22 U.S.C. §6901, establishes a rebuttable presumption that any … Continue Reading

SEC Charges Mining Company with Misleading Investors in its ESG Disclosures

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last month charged Vale S.A., a publicly traded Brazilian mining company and one of the world’s largest iron ore producers, with making false and misleading claims about the safety of the Brumadinho dam including through its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures. According to the SEC’s complaint, for years, … Continue Reading

California Racial, Ethnic and LGBT Quotas for Company Boards Ruled Unconstitutional

Last Friday a California court ruled unconstitutional the state’s racial, ethnic, and LGBT quotas for corporate boards of directors. This now voided law had been an ideological lodestone for the “G” (governance) in ESG. Superior Court judge, the Honorable Terry Green, granted the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment without a trial in Robin Crest, et … Continue Reading

Ukraine is Now a Real ESG Issue

While there has been near universal condemnation of the war against Ukraine by Russia, and our empathy is unequivocally with the people of Ukraine, this invasion of a sovereign nation, something that echoes the darkest days in European history, today presents issues of ESG. This blog post is being written 9 days after Putin’s war … Continue Reading

Zero Waste in an Era of Net Zero Everything

Despite that the Zero Waste movement peaked in about 1998, in the modern context of Net Zero from Net Zero Energy to Net Zero Carbon, we are today with surprising frequency asked about a business being able to claim it is Zero Waste. In a widely accepted definition, Zero Waste is, The conservation of all … Continue Reading

The ESG Benefit of Paying Employees to Work at the Polls

The “S” in ESG is among the most impactful sustainability factors despite being among the least measured. There are a myriad of Social factors in sustainability, but what they have in common is they are about “social relationships.” A company’s relationship with its employees is key, but so is its relationship with the community and … Continue Reading

The UK Sets the Scene for Mandatory ESG Laws in the Western World

As we in the U.S. await action by the federal government on mandatory ESG laws, the United Kingdom has become the first European Union country to enact mandatory ESG disclosure laws. These new reporting requirements are of import beyond the shores of Great Britain in that they portend what government mandates are to come across … Continue Reading

ESG is an Opportunity for Commercial Landlords

At first blush the California Climate Corporate Accountability Act requires only a small number of the nation’s biggest corporations generating more than $1 Billion in annual revenue to report their greenhouse gas emissions, but a thoughtful consideration makes clear that if enacted SB 260 will require carbon reporting by thousands if not tens of thousands … Continue Reading

FTC Regulates What You can Say about Your Solar Panels

A business that generates renewable energy, say, with solar panels, but sells the Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) for that renewable energy may not then claim it “uses” renewable energy. The Federal Trade Commissions has prescribed that such would be deceptive. That guidance from the FTC is not new, but as both onsite and offsite renewable … Continue Reading

ESG Often Led by Renewable Energy

Businesses often ask about including green power in ESG efforts. We suggest rephrasing the query such that it is about using renewable energy to reduce the environmental harms associated with fossil fuel energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase the supply of renewable energy and foster a just transition to an ESG driven economy. Businesses do … Continue Reading

Top 10 ESG Blog Posts of 2021

As we look back in this ‘year in review’ at our most read blog posts in 2021, at a time when most of us have accepted that we will never go back to exactly the way things were, we are no doubt collectively ready for a new year. And we are incredibly excited about the … Continue Reading
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