Alarm bells should be blaring in C-suites across the country. For too long, executives in glass towers have foisted a woke ESG (environmental, social, and governance) agenda on their employees, suppliers, and customers — all in an attempt to curry favor with leftist activists. And now all the virtue-signaling is about to come back to bite them.
In fact, the same green activists corporate executives have been trying to appease are now using their ESG commitments against them.
The loudest wake-up call came earlier this year when New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against JBS Food USA. Among other complaints, the lawsuit alleges that the world’s largest beef producer has been misleading the public about claims it will achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. James contends that the company’s pledge “is not feasible given the current scope of the JBS Group’s business operations and its plans to significantly increase beef production.”
Inevitably, the costly litigation that results from this and the other anticipated lawsuits will harm the consumer. Not only will prices increase, but another outcome of the litigation could be the removal of food products from store shelves in order to meet climate commitments that should never have been made in the first place.
Read Will Hild’s full op-ed at the Washington Examiner