Good morning, Peter Vanham here in Geneva.
As Republican attacks on “DEI” (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and “ESG” (environmental, social, and governance) practices continue, business leaders are responding in a rather pragmatic way: They’re sticking with the embattled practices, while avoiding the acronyms.
We’ve pointed this out anecdotally a few times before in CEO Daily. But now there's a new data point on the trend from a Bloomberg survey released this week. The main finding:
“About two-thirds of respondents in a survey of roughly 300 Bloomberg terminal users said the anti-ESG movement that started in the U.S. last year will force firms to stop using those three letters in conversations with clients. However, they’ll continue to incorporate environmental, social and governance metrics in their business, they also said.”
Some even happily stick with the labels in more explicit ways. This week I spoke with Graham Weaver, the founder and CEO of Alpine Investors. The private equity firm was one of the first in its sector to pursue the “B Corp” certification, with a particular interest in hiring, talent development, and retention practices.
“It doesn’t feel to me like there’s a big conflict [between B Corp practices and performance],” he told me. “If what I described to you about treating people well, getting a high [net promoter score], and creating an environment where people want to work, conflicted with high performance that would create a lot of tension. But it has not. The two have supported each other.”
As a case in point, Alpine has made its track record of hiring 50% women and one-third minority candidates a key differentiator to other private equity firms. Doing so increased the fund’s performance, Weaver told me. The firm claims it's the best place to work among America’s top business school graduates. “We’re attracting the world’s greatest people,” he said. “And they want to spend not two years, but 20 years [with us].”
He also pointed out the bottom line of his embrace of ESG and DEI.
“This is not fluff and happy talk. This works. This is the formula for success,” he said. “This is not about sounding good or looking good. Our investors care about dollars in and out. They are investing in us because of our performance, at the end of the day. Perhaps they like the 'B Corp' label, but we doubled our fund size [to $4.5 billion] because of our performance.”
More news below.
Peter Vanham
peter.vanham@fortune.com
@petervanham
