December 30, 2025 • 29 mins
ON the heels of several positive business announcements this year in Alabama Local author and business expert Don Erwin explains what Alabama needs to do to remain competitive economically into the next year. Then the Executive director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise project explains ESG Scores and how they impact the valuation and profitability of investment of companies.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The state of Alabama's rivalry between Huntsville and Birmingham rages on,
and Huntsville has been running up the score. Recently, Hello,
I'm John Mouens. So this is your point Alabama on
the Alabama Radio Network. Recently, Huntsville landed a big one.
Eli Lilly will be building a new farmer plant in
the Tennessee Valley and employing four hundred and fifty full
time workers and provide three thousand construction jobs, contributing more
than six billion this billion with a B jobs to
(00:23):
the Huntsville economy. Joining me now is Don Irwin, who
in twenty twenty wrote the book Buffalo Hunting in Alabama? Don,
did you write this into existence?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
A long time ago? When I was doing economic development
full time, one of the long term targets that we
had for the state was to get a big farmer plant.
So it had been it had been on our mind
to get one. We have some medium sized farmer plants
in the state, but not really a big one like
Eli Lilly. And so in twenty twenty, I when I
(00:54):
wrote a fiction book about economic development, and I wrote
it because I had never seen a fitiction book on
economic development. Then I needed something for the plot for
the main characters to chase after, and so the idea
of the farmer plant came about, and so we knew
it would probably happen sooner or later, and so it
(01:15):
has well.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
The rivalry between Birmingham and Huntsville, there's kind of a
gentleman's agreement. It seems like we're Huntsville. They were in
charge of all of the aerospace stuff and maybe the
fence stuff. In Birmingham, we're going to be We've got
Southern Research, We've got UAB, so we're going to be
the biomedical center. So all of a sudden, Huntsville leapfrogs us.
Is that because Huntsville is doing something right or Birmingham's
(01:37):
doing something wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
That's a good question. First of all, I'm not sure
I would call it that much of a rivalry. I mean,
you have two very different metros. The Birmingham metro is
actually younger than the Huntsville metro. At one time, Huntsville
was the capital of Alabama a long time ago, but
Huntsville stayed relatively small until nineteen fifty, when the German
(02:02):
Rocket Team came there to help the US space program
and the US military but they're very different Huntsville. The
Huntsville Metro is only two counties, very few cities. The
Birmingham Metro is seven counties and something around eighty eighty
(02:23):
five different cities in towns.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So is the Huntsville Metro considered Madison County and Morgan.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
County or it's Limestone.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I believe, Okay, Limestone is because I was wondering, So
you don't consider Decatur part of Huntsville. That's a separate I.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Think part of it is. I'm not sure totally. I
know the metro has about a half a million people
now and it's been growing very.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Fast, very fast, because you look at not only this,
but also a space command moving to town and all
the stuff. Because when you get a big company, of
course there's stuff where they move in to support that business,
and the people have to live there, They have to
eat somewhere, and they have to buy their you know,
grocery somewhere, all the kind of stuff. So that's the
kind of thing that is really pushing him.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
And I always thought, well, I would say Huntsill's got
almost an ideal situation. They have a strong science and
technology base and have since nineteen fifty with the German
rocket scientists coming in and in the existing missile program there.
They have lots of flat land, which is important for
(03:24):
sites because if you don't have sites, you don't have
anything to sell.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
That's very true.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And they have great leadership. Tommy Battle was on the
University of Alabama debate team with me and so I
remember him from long ago. He's a great leader and
he's done a great job with that city. Birmingham's challenges
are different. You have to be more united than ever
when you have something like seven counties and seventy or
(03:51):
eighty cities and towns, and being united with that many
is a difficult task. So they're two very different situations.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
You're right about that, Birmingham. One of the things that
we struggle with is the fact that are topography, there's
not a lot of flat land. Like you said, in Huntsville,
you've got the Tennessee Valley and the river kind of
flattened everything out and you can see for a long way.
So if you need a big flat spot to build
a big factory, it's a lot easier to find that
spot than in the Birmingham area. You're gonna have to
carve out the side of a hillside to make a
(04:23):
flat spot to build something.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, well, I would say topography is more difficult in Birmingham,
the Birmingham Metro, but you can't let that use that
as an excuse either. I mean, if you look, there's
a big chunk of acreage west of Birmingham that's been
carved out for a data center project.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
It's true, much to the chagrin of the people investment.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I worked on the Barber Motorsports Park and that's eight
hundred and forty acres right there. So a part of
it is the determination to be successful too. That makes
a big difference.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I've always thought Huntsville was it was a smart city.
And what I mean my smart was designed by people
who I think had a vision for the future. When
they laid out five sixty five, it didn't really need
to go in. It's like, well, it connects Huntsville back
to sixty five, but the stuff in between it's almost
not necessary. And then it just and then technology followed
right along with Redstone and the airport and everything else.
(05:16):
Before you know it, now there's building exits and new
exits onto it. Because they had that forward thinking thought
about we're going to need all this infrastructure in the roads.
They run so much more smoothly in Birmingham, as you know,
because of the mountain. If there's a wreck on sixty five,
you take thirty one, but then that jams up thirty one,
and if both are jammed up, then people just can't
get home and you just sit there forever in traffic,
(05:38):
And I think it causes a lot of real problems
for people who are living and working in the area,
and so that causes problems to attracting people to want
to work here.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
You just have to overcome them. As I said in
my article, back in nineteen ninety three, Alabama was in
some really serious trouble. The textile industry was leaving, the
economy wasn't very good, lots of challenge, but people at
that time did what it took and worked together to
win the Mercedes project, which nobody gave them a chance
(06:08):
in the world's winning.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
One of the things Alabama that holds Alabama back, and
I've lived here for a long time as well, is
there is a stigma attached to our state, especially areas
like Birmingham, where there is a stigma and people from
especially up north they looked down on Alabama. I don't
mean that literally, I mean figuratively. They think that they're surprising.
Oh you guys have running water. Oh you guys actually
wear shoes, you know they're yes, yes, we have running
(06:31):
This is the first world here. It takes a lot
to convince people that this is every bit as good
of a place to put a company as Cincinnati or
San Francisco, and in a lot of ways better.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Why is that things changed over time. I'm old enough
to remember when people thought of North Carolina as the
tobacco state. That was its label, and that's what it
was known for. Today. If you say, what's the one
image of North Carolina, it's probably the.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I said it right, brothers. It's what the right brothers,
you know, or.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
To or a research triangle park maybe.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Right like the Research Triangle near Raleigh or the Triad
over there near Winston Sale.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Or something like that. So things can change over time,
and it has changed for Alabama as well. Between twenty
twenty and twenty twenty four, Alabama's population grew. We were
the nineteenth fastest state in population growth. So that tells
you something like that. I mean, we were, we were
you know, we beat thirty one other states in terms
(07:30):
of population growth as a percent, and that tells me
things have changed. I mean the areas that are really growing. Huntsvil,
of course, is growing very very fast, Auburn Opalaika areas
growing very fast. The whole Baldwin County area is growing
very very fast. And then there's other areas that are
growing at a moderate rate, Tuscaloosa and Decatur in different
(07:54):
places like that. So you just have to persevere.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
How much of the growth in East Alabama do you
think is due to this sprawl of Atlanta, And it
sprawls so much that there's people who they drive in
an hour from places like Aniston and further east than
that to work in Atlanta, but they don't want to
live in the Atlanta metro because it's expensive and congested.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
When you say East Alabama, I think more in terms
of further down toward the Auburn Oploca area. I've worked
a lot of economic development projects with Auburn over the years.
A lot of German companies, Swiss Company and Auburn always
jokingly referred to the Atlanta Airport as the Auburn International Airport.
(08:37):
If you go down to Lake Martin down there. You
see a lot of Atlanta people that are that are
have homes down there in that area. So yeah, there
has been some you know, some some flow, but the
spreading out is everywhere. I think there's and this was
several years ago. I saw that there was only one
(08:59):
count between Atlanta and Chattanooga that was not in the
metropolitan area of one or the other cities. So the
spread out is just it's grown over time.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
But Alabama is positioned because of our proximity to Atlanta
and Nashville too. For the Tennessee Valley, a lot of
people in that in Huntsville, they run up to Nashville
all the time because it's just you know, an hour
and a half away exactly. And I think because of
that proximity we're in, we're in a great position for
to be close but not too close to those places
and still keeping identity of our own.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, I think so. And and you said before the
rivalry between Birmingham and Huntsville, but I think there's a
lot more potential for synergy between the two areas. You've
got that corridor between them, and right in the middle
of it, you've got the town of Coleman, which although
it's a small town, is enormously innovative as a town Coleman.
(09:57):
Coleman come in way above its weight in actual population.
There are all kinds of national and international companies that
are in Coleman, and so that's a great corridor right there.
And I think the potential of interaction between Huntsville and Birmingham,
I think it has a lot of potential.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Do you think that we need to do more in
investing in our infrastructure are roads? Because sixty five, as
you mentioned the corridor, it gets awfully jammed up between
Huntsville and Birmingham on a regular basis, and there's usually
a wreck, usually about Coleman, that shuts down the interstate
for forty five minutes at least once a week. Do
we need better roads, wider roads to better facilitate back
(10:41):
and forth transportation.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
I think that's an issue that the Lieutenant Governor has
championed quite a bit, widening I sixty five, and I
think there's currently a little bit of a dispute about
how to spend that road money between doing that versus
doing a north south route through Tuscalossa in the Black
Belt area down through there, Yeah, and there's there's pluses
(11:06):
and minuses to each one. I don't I would. If
you go by pure traffic numbers, I would, you'd probably
have to say that I sixty five widening makes the most.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Sense, right I would. I would agree that that's a
route I go regularly, and I always think about, how boy,
I wish there was another lane here. I'm glad they
finally are widening things south because when you go down
towards Montgomery, things starts at the road widens out pretty well,
just you know, as soon as you hit the Autaga
County line. And I always like, well man, they got
great roads here in Montgomery. If they could do this
with sixty five. And I'm glad they're finally getting sixty
(11:36):
five three lane all the way past too clear. I
think two thirty one is where they're taking it out now.
It'd be good if they could get it keep it
the whole way all the way down to Montgomery. But
I realized that takes money, and that's something that's kind
of in short supply in the state A lot of times.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Oh you know, infrastructure is an important thing. I mean,
there are a lot of different factors that come into
play when a company is looking for a location. Infrastructure,
the availability of sites. If a community doesn't have a
site for a company, it really doesn't have anything to sell.
The quality of the workforce is important. The business climate,
(12:12):
which includes the tax structure. All of that lazy in
economic development juggles a lot of balls as they're trying
to attract and grow companies.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
You mentioned tax structure, and that's a good point to
stick on because there are parts of the country where
they have great infrastructure, lots of roads, wide roads, but
they also have very high taxes. In Alabama, our taxes
are low, but then again we're not spending it on
the infrastructure. So there's I guess that balancing act of yes,
we want low taxes, but we also want decent roads
(12:44):
and school. Schools are important, number one, because for attracting
people to come here with their families, if you don't
have good schools, people aren't going to want to come
here and work. But number two, those schools, we'd like
there not to be a brain drain. We'd like for
people to graduate from Auburn in Alabama and stay here
as opposed to go work in the northeast somewhere.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Well, Don, I want to thank you so much for
coming in your book once again. I guess it's still
available for if people want to purchase. I realized it
was written, you know, six years ago, but still it
sounds to me like it's still predicting the future to
some degree.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, it's available on Amazon and your book.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
One more time is.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Buffalo Hunting in Alabama. It's on it's in paper, it's
in Kindle, and it's in audiobooks.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And most of them, so it's and it's not about
a hunting large game.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
No, No, that's that's sort of a phrase to used
within economic development when you're chasing big projects like Eliah Lilly.
It's called buffalo hunting. So that's where the phrase came from.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Well, Don, let's hope we get another another few more
buffalo in here, because we could use them here in
Alabama and we can use that to have a bigger
tax base and fix some of those roads. Sounds good,
Don Erman, thank you so much for joining me today
on Viewpoint, Alabama.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
We all want a clean environment around us, and we
also want a good return on our financial events. But
what do these two things have to do? With one another,
maybe not as much as some companies are saying hello,
I'm John Mounch and this is Viewpoint Alabama on the
Alabama Radio Network. And joining me now is the executive
director of the National Centers Free Enterprise Project, Steffan Padfield. Steffan,
(14:15):
what does ESG have to do with my ROI?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Well, that's the big looming question. So one of the
things that we do at the National Center for Public
Policy Research, and I do specifically at the Free Enterprise
Project is look at corporations and engage with them as
a shareholder. And one of the things we've noticed is
that if you go into these annual sustainability reports, they
can sometimes be fifty pages or more, you almost never
(14:40):
see any reference to the sorts of things shareholders care about,
like net present value, card calculations, return on investment calculations.
And yet the overall rhetoric is shareholder value, shareholder value,
shareholder value. So there seems to be a disconnect, and
there's at least some reason for concern that ideal, logical
pors problematic incentives are driving decision making in the ESG
(15:05):
and sustainability space that is not rooted in shareholder wealth.
Maximization or at least not being properly disclosed in terms
of what is driving the decision making.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, let's back up a little bit, Stefan, what is ESG.
What do those letters stand for and what does it mean?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Sure, so ESG stands for Environmental, Social and governance and
it typically refers to environmental, social and governance factors. And
there's actually quite a bit of debate about what they
mean in practice. I think the most favorable perspective is
they are additional lenses to apply to business decision making
to help improve that decision making. So you might say,
(15:46):
for example, rather than just having your head buried in
the financial statements, also ask yourself how this decision is
going to impact the environment. Ask yourself how it's going
to impact social concerns more broadly, for example inequality. Ask
yourself how your governance structure is impacted by these things,
so bord diversity for example. And so the idea is
(16:07):
that you're going to add these additional lenses to get
a better decision making process. Now, the concern from those
of us who are critics of ESG is that this
essentially just becomes a one way ratchet and a form
of a trojan horse for leftist ideology because it seems
to always and I'm talking like one hundred percent in practice,
(16:28):
be like you're at a you know, a convention for
you know, the Socialist Parties of America or something like that.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
So Stefan, is the thinking on these on behalf of
these companies that well, if we are if we're good
stewarts of the environment, then will be good stewarts of
your money? Or is it the thinking that these things
are good for your money? In other words, these practices
being economically you know, or environmentally responsible, socially responsible that
will yield returns from a dollars and cent standpoint.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
The thing is, it's really hard to know, and I
think it's important to recognize that there's probably not just
one answer, right. So these decision makers are people, they
are teams of people. They are driven by different incentives.
So some of it may be very much good faith
a belief that all these decisions are pro shareholder value
in the ways that you just describe, for example, but
(17:24):
maybe they can't nail it down in the way you
might a more traditional investment where you do the sort
of traditional financial metric analysis, and that's fine, there's certainly
room for that, But then there are also other issues, right,
so there's no way we can ignore the role of ideology.
I mean, when you look at a company like let's
just take Google for example, and you look at the
(17:45):
makeup of their board of directors, and you look at
their makeup of their employees, and you look at their
political contributions, I mean, is it is tilting so far
leftward there doesn't seem to be any room for any
sort of conservative viewpoint, And so there's a concern there
that that might also be driving the decision making in
a way that is unhelpfully untethered from shareholder value. So
(18:07):
getting at this is really part of what we're trying
to do at the Free Enterprise Project. We're filing a
number of proposals, We're engaging with corporations. We want more transparency,
we want more disclosure. And this is not to say
that ESG sustainability, these sorts of initiatives can't be have
a proper role as cost centers. Right, So for example,
(18:27):
regulatory compliance, goodwill generation, maybe even a type of philanthropy
they're at risk mitigation That may not necessarily be an
ROI item, but maybe just a cost center that's worthwhile
in the long term. The problem is if all of
it is disclosed under this sort of broad umbrella and
narrative of shareholder value, the risk is that everybody just assumes, oh,
(18:51):
you must be doing the same calculations that you're doing
for all your investments.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And investment companies they're required to make disclosures and they're
required to create quarterly reports and that sort of thing.
How much of that is taken up by disclosing how
they're behaving in terms of ESG scores and that sort
of thing. I mean, is that a metric that is
viewed not only by federal regulators but also by the
hedge fund managers and the people who are looking to
(19:16):
put the money in. Who's looking at this?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of people looking at it.
But unfortunately, I think we also have some very real gaps. Right. So,
in terms of so, for example, federal securities law disclosure,
one of the key threshold items is materiality, and so
often there will be requirements that material information be disclosed.
There are also financial accounting statements that need to be included.
(19:40):
The issue is that we are still very much in
flux Even though this has been around for a number
of years, you still have a lot of debate among
the relevant experts in terms of how to apply the
materiality threshold, what level of detail should the financial statements include,
and so you really don't have at least I have
not seen a lot of this sort of thing where
(20:02):
you would have something as granular as a statement that says,
all of our ESG investments that are set forth in
our annual ESG report have been authorized on the basis
of net present value calculations and are maintained on the
basis of return on investment calculations. That is something that
we have been asking for, right is either an affirmation
(20:22):
or a denial or some kind of qualification around that.
You really don't see that now. In the engagement we've
been having with corporations, some are better than others. Some
will have some language that starts getting there, you know,
tucked away somewhere else. But the level of disclosure that
I think shareholders and stakeholders more broadly would benefit from
is still very much a work in progress.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
We can see that dollars and cents wise, we can
see that's a real metric you can measure you can
actually see how much the company is spending, how much
is bringing in, and therefore what the final you know,
what they net, And then we can also see that
arbitrary ESG score. I'm wondering, is there a way you
could take it to put it on a table and say, okay,
(21:04):
you know, company, I see you know causation, Like, does
does it higher ESG score result in greater output? Or
does a higher e suco or actually hurt the economic
output of a company?
Speaker 3 (21:14):
So there certainly have been a number of studies trying
to get at that. One of the things that I've seen,
you know, sort of a few years ago, there was
all the rage and the law and economics field about oh,
we're going to start doing empiricism and that'll solve everything.
And what ends up happening is you get twelve studies
going one way and twelve studies going the other way,
and you're back to sort of using your logic to
the best of your ability. So we end up in
(21:36):
a place where you get studies going both directions. Right,
you have some good studies that say, look, there's a
correlation here. You get studies that say that's not it
underperforms the market. There's also then clearly issues of causation. Right.
It's helpful to learn about correlation, but it doesn't necessarily
tell you about causation. It could even be the other
way around. Right. A successful company can afford to invest
in what we might call luxury goods, right, that they
(21:58):
might not if they weren't profitable. So it's it is
important to look at that data, and it is out there,
but it's it has not reached the point of being
definitive enough to really say, Okay, we're all set, we
know what we're doing. My own view is that I
think actually both sides of the aisle here, So I
tend to be an ESG skeptic. I think the costs
far outweigh the benefits. But even if you're someone who's
(22:19):
a proponent of sustainability and a proponent of the issues
that typically come up under ESG, I still think you
want the best allocation or disclosure regime possible to make
sure again that the capital is being put in the
right direction and that you're not just being a victim
of greenwashing, right. And I think one way of doing
this is just again get more clear on hey, these
(22:40):
things we're doing because we are very confident that they
are right, you know, positive value right, a positive ROI
even accounting for opportunity costs. These other things we're doing
because we need to comply with the regulations, so it's
a compliance cost. This other thing is a risk mitigation.
We think, based on XYZ that there's a risk here
that we want addressed this way, not necessarily you know,
(23:02):
going to be a value enhancing you know, next quarter.
And then these other things we're doing essentially the form
of philanthropy. I think, even being more transparent about the
ways in which these investment decisions are being made or
these you know, if their donations, then donations would be
helpful because right now we're still getting you know, very
much sort of black box disclosures where you know, you again,
(23:24):
you get the ESG report, it's got billions of dollars
of outlays across you know, ten fourteen to fifteen projects,
but it's still unclear the extent to which those have
all been initiated and maintained on the basis of standard
financial metrics or some other basis.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Well, Stefan, I'm also wondering how it is that different
companies do very different things and their practices, Some might
be more I would say ESG friendly. Like, let's suppose,
on one hand, you've got a business that makes solar
panels by handicapped Guatemalan immigrants. You're gonna imagine that would
have a higher ESG score then say and a Texas
(24:02):
oil company. But both of those companies, I'm gonna say,
the Texas Oil company probably makes more profit, so it
might make more green even if it's not green. So
does ESG punish a company that, say, is involved in
production of you know, oil or something that is not
considered to be green or not considered to be fair
to people in developing countries. Isn't that kind of how
(24:24):
it works?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, I mean that's definitely part of the story. There
definitely seems to be some very real clear cases where
companies that you would think, if you were in favor
of you know, green energy or you know, development of
economic situations in countries that are further behind the average,
let's say, you would think they would get a positive
(24:47):
score and that yet they don't. I think a lot
of people will tee up. You know, Elon Musk's company,
which seemed to be a darling of ESG, and then
the minute he became a Trump supporter, all of a sudden,
somehow all the scores went negative. So you have some
examples of that. The other thing too, is, you know,
corporations do have choices that they can make. There's just
healthy disagreement and competition, right, So, reasonable people acting in
(25:11):
good faith doing all the appropriate disclosures can still vary
widely in what they think, you know, because we're all
trying to predict the future on some level, right like
it is solar going to be the thing in two
years kind of decisions, and you're gonna have wide variation.
So it's certainly not the case that folks that are
coming from my perspective are saying variation is a signal
of some kind of fraud. Not at all. It's just
(25:34):
that the relevant disclosures seem to be too opaque so far,
and there seem to be too many concerns or red
flags about influences other than this sort of good faith
decision making that we're talking about going on, and more
work needs to be done to make sure that we
keep that to a minimum.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Well, I'm even concerned, Stefan, that sometimes the ESG can
be a contradiction in terms and in other words, if
you are concerned about, like say, giving money to America,
so we're going to spend all of our money in
a developing country and make sure our products are made
in a developing country because we're concerned about the social
governance end of things, So we're going to give all
of our money to some third world country. But historically speaking,
(26:12):
third world countries have some of the worst environmental track
records as opposed to America, where we have some of
the best environmental track records. We're more responsible already, so
you could see how the E could actually be to
the detriment of the SG.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Absolutely, those sorts of conflicts are I mean, I think
another one that's very obvious from my perspective that I've
been working on is you've got a lot of companies
saying that they're pro diversity and they want to improve
the status of women, and then they turn right around
and say, well, in terms of our board diversity, if
a male identifies as a woman, we're going to count
that as a woman. So basically we have a male
(26:48):
taking the seat of a woman on the board, and
we're going to highlight that as an aspect of women's progress. Right.
So there's a lot of tensions like that. And again
I do think there's room for corporations to make choices.
But what you're pointing out in part I think is
at least a little bit touching on the issue of greenwashing. Right,
If you're going to make these blanket statements and these pronouncements,
(27:10):
and we understand that corporations are large bureauca reccies. Sometimes
the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
But there is an important agenda in terms of keeping
corporations accountable if they say they're going to do things
for the environment and it turns out that they're spending
money in a way that actually undermines that very agenda.
So for example, you know, let's flip it around for
(27:31):
a second. Right, we want to help development in countries
where there's a lot of poverty. Well, probably the best
way to do that is to encourage oil and gas development,
because that's going to be the fastest thing to allow
them to gain growth. So if you're on the one hand,
say we're pro development, but we're anti oil and gas,
I think that's the kind of conflict you're talking about.
Those are choices that corporations can make, but the disclosures
(27:53):
have to be honest, transparent, truthful, and that's I think
where a lot of the action is going to take place,
and there will be all so potentially lawsuits and regulatory actions,
you know. I mean, I think we're already seeing that
with some state attorneys general bringing actions for consumer fraud
with corporations that are doing this sort of thing. So
people are taking it very seriously. I do think there
(28:13):
are going to be some consequences that are still in
the pipeline for corporations playing a little fat, too fast
and loose with this sort of thing. But the issues
that you're talking about, I think are are very critical
and important for us to keep focusing on.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
This is Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network. My
name is John Mount, and I'm speaking with the executive
director of the National Centers Free Enterprise Project, Stefan Papfield.
Stefan for more information on any of the things we've
talked about today, You've got a website. What is that website?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Sure, listeners can go to Nationalcenter dot org. We've got
a number of projects there in addition to the Free
Enterprise Project. You can take a quick look see what interests.
You sign up for our newsletter and that's a great
way to keep up with us.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
And with regard to this, you can also use that
information to make decision on your own economically and also
contact your legislators if you'd like them to make some
decisions on your behalf from a legislative standpoint. I imagine
that's right.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
So we will have letter writing campaigns. We also have
as part of the Free Enterprise Project what's called Proxy Navigator,
So that allows retail shareholders and others to basically follow
our voting recommendations to align their shareholder voting with their values.
So definitely take a look at that app. A lot
of good information in there, even if you end up
not deciding to follow our voting recommendation.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Sefon Padfield, thank you so much for joining us today
on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
You've been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program
from the Alabama Radio Network.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
The opinions expressed on Viewpoint Alabama are not necessarily those
of the staff, management, or advertisers of this station.
The state of Alabama's rivalry between Huntsville and Birmingham rages on,
and Huntsville has been running up the score. Recently, Hello,
I'm John Mouens. So this is your point Alabama on
the Alabama Radio Network. Recently, Huntsville landed a big one.
Eli Lilly will be building a new farmer plant in
the Tennessee Valley and employing four hundred and fifty full
time workers and provide three thousand construction jobs, contributing more
than six billion this billion with a B jobs to
(00:23):
the Huntsville economy. Joining me now is Don Irwin, who
in twenty twenty wrote the book Buffalo Hunting in Alabama? Don,
did you write this into existence?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
A long time ago? When I was doing economic development
full time, one of the long term targets that we
had for the state was to get a big farmer plant.
So it had been it had been on our mind
to get one. We have some medium sized farmer plants
in the state, but not really a big one like
Eli Lilly. And so in twenty twenty, I when I
(00:54):
wrote a fiction book about economic development, and I wrote
it because I had never seen a fitiction book on
economic development. Then I needed something for the plot for
the main characters to chase after, and so the idea
of the farmer plant came about, and so we knew
it would probably happen sooner or later, and so it
(01:15):
has well.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
The rivalry between Birmingham and Huntsville, there's kind of a
gentleman's agreement. It seems like we're Huntsville. They were in
charge of all of the aerospace stuff and maybe the
fence stuff. In Birmingham, we're going to be We've got
Southern Research, We've got UAB, so we're going to be
the biomedical center. So all of a sudden, Huntsville leapfrogs us.
Is that because Huntsville is doing something right or Birmingham's
(01:37):
doing something wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
That's a good question. First of all, I'm not sure
I would call it that much of a rivalry. I mean,
you have two very different metros. The Birmingham metro is
actually younger than the Huntsville metro. At one time, Huntsville
was the capital of Alabama a long time ago, but
Huntsville stayed relatively small until nineteen fifty, when the German
(02:02):
Rocket Team came there to help the US space program
and the US military but they're very different Huntsville. The
Huntsville Metro is only two counties, very few cities. The
Birmingham Metro is seven counties and something around eighty eighty
(02:23):
five different cities in towns.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So is the Huntsville Metro considered Madison County and Morgan.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
County or it's Limestone.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I believe, Okay, Limestone is because I was wondering, So
you don't consider Decatur part of Huntsville. That's a separate I.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Think part of it is. I'm not sure totally. I
know the metro has about a half a million people
now and it's been growing very.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Fast, very fast, because you look at not only this,
but also a space command moving to town and all
the stuff. Because when you get a big company, of
course there's stuff where they move in to support that business,
and the people have to live there, They have to
eat somewhere, and they have to buy their you know,
grocery somewhere, all the kind of stuff. So that's the
kind of thing that is really pushing him.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
And I always thought, well, I would say Huntsill's got
almost an ideal situation. They have a strong science and
technology base and have since nineteen fifty with the German
rocket scientists coming in and in the existing missile program there.
They have lots of flat land, which is important for
(03:24):
sites because if you don't have sites, you don't have
anything to sell.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
That's very true.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And they have great leadership. Tommy Battle was on the
University of Alabama debate team with me and so I
remember him from long ago. He's a great leader and
he's done a great job with that city. Birmingham's challenges
are different. You have to be more united than ever
when you have something like seven counties and seventy or
(03:51):
eighty cities and towns, and being united with that many
is a difficult task. So they're two very different situations.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
You're right about that, Birmingham. One of the things that
we struggle with is the fact that are topography, there's
not a lot of flat land. Like you said, in Huntsville,
you've got the Tennessee Valley and the river kind of
flattened everything out and you can see for a long way.
So if you need a big flat spot to build
a big factory, it's a lot easier to find that
spot than in the Birmingham area. You're gonna have to
carve out the side of a hillside to make a
(04:23):
flat spot to build something.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, well, I would say topography is more difficult in Birmingham,
the Birmingham Metro, but you can't let that use that
as an excuse either. I mean, if you look, there's
a big chunk of acreage west of Birmingham that's been
carved out for a data center project.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
It's true, much to the chagrin of the people investment.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I worked on the Barber Motorsports Park and that's eight
hundred and forty acres right there. So a part of
it is the determination to be successful too. That makes
a big difference.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I've always thought Huntsville was it was a smart city.
And what I mean my smart was designed by people
who I think had a vision for the future. When
they laid out five sixty five, it didn't really need
to go in. It's like, well, it connects Huntsville back
to sixty five, but the stuff in between it's almost
not necessary. And then it just and then technology followed
right along with Redstone and the airport and everything else.
(05:16):
Before you know it, now there's building exits and new
exits onto it. Because they had that forward thinking thought
about we're going to need all this infrastructure in the roads.
They run so much more smoothly in Birmingham, as you know,
because of the mountain. If there's a wreck on sixty five,
you take thirty one, but then that jams up thirty one,
and if both are jammed up, then people just can't
get home and you just sit there forever in traffic,
(05:38):
And I think it causes a lot of real problems
for people who are living and working in the area,
and so that causes problems to attracting people to want
to work here.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
You just have to overcome them. As I said in
my article, back in nineteen ninety three, Alabama was in
some really serious trouble. The textile industry was leaving, the
economy wasn't very good, lots of challenge, but people at
that time did what it took and worked together to
win the Mercedes project, which nobody gave them a chance
(06:08):
in the world's winning.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
One of the things Alabama that holds Alabama back, and
I've lived here for a long time as well, is
there is a stigma attached to our state, especially areas
like Birmingham, where there is a stigma and people from
especially up north they looked down on Alabama. I don't
mean that literally, I mean figuratively. They think that they're surprising.
Oh you guys have running water. Oh you guys actually
wear shoes, you know they're yes, yes, we have running
(06:31):
This is the first world here. It takes a lot
to convince people that this is every bit as good
of a place to put a company as Cincinnati or
San Francisco, and in a lot of ways better.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Why is that things changed over time. I'm old enough
to remember when people thought of North Carolina as the
tobacco state. That was its label, and that's what it
was known for. Today. If you say, what's the one
image of North Carolina, it's probably the.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I said it right, brothers. It's what the right brothers,
you know, or.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
To or a research triangle park maybe.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Right like the Research Triangle near Raleigh or the Triad
over there near Winston Sale.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Or something like that. So things can change over time,
and it has changed for Alabama as well. Between twenty
twenty and twenty twenty four, Alabama's population grew. We were
the nineteenth fastest state in population growth. So that tells
you something like that. I mean, we were, we were
you know, we beat thirty one other states in terms
(07:30):
of population growth as a percent, and that tells me
things have changed. I mean the areas that are really growing. Huntsvil,
of course, is growing very very fast, Auburn Opalaika areas
growing very fast. The whole Baldwin County area is growing
very very fast. And then there's other areas that are
growing at a moderate rate, Tuscaloosa and Decatur in different
(07:54):
places like that. So you just have to persevere.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
How much of the growth in East Alabama do you
think is due to this sprawl of Atlanta, And it
sprawls so much that there's people who they drive in
an hour from places like Aniston and further east than
that to work in Atlanta, but they don't want to
live in the Atlanta metro because it's expensive and congested.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
When you say East Alabama, I think more in terms
of further down toward the Auburn Oploca area. I've worked
a lot of economic development projects with Auburn over the years.
A lot of German companies, Swiss Company and Auburn always
jokingly referred to the Atlanta Airport as the Auburn International Airport.
(08:37):
If you go down to Lake Martin down there. You
see a lot of Atlanta people that are that are
have homes down there in that area. So yeah, there
has been some you know, some some flow, but the
spreading out is everywhere. I think there's and this was
several years ago. I saw that there was only one
(08:59):
count between Atlanta and Chattanooga that was not in the
metropolitan area of one or the other cities. So the
spread out is just it's grown over time.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
But Alabama is positioned because of our proximity to Atlanta
and Nashville too. For the Tennessee Valley, a lot of
people in that in Huntsville, they run up to Nashville
all the time because it's just you know, an hour
and a half away exactly. And I think because of
that proximity we're in, we're in a great position for
to be close but not too close to those places
and still keeping identity of our own.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, I think so. And and you said before the
rivalry between Birmingham and Huntsville, but I think there's a
lot more potential for synergy between the two areas. You've
got that corridor between them, and right in the middle
of it, you've got the town of Coleman, which although
it's a small town, is enormously innovative as a town Coleman.
(09:57):
Coleman come in way above its weight in actual population.
There are all kinds of national and international companies that
are in Coleman, and so that's a great corridor right there.
And I think the potential of interaction between Huntsville and Birmingham,
I think it has a lot of potential.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Do you think that we need to do more in
investing in our infrastructure are roads? Because sixty five, as
you mentioned the corridor, it gets awfully jammed up between
Huntsville and Birmingham on a regular basis, and there's usually
a wreck, usually about Coleman, that shuts down the interstate
for forty five minutes at least once a week. Do
we need better roads, wider roads to better facilitate back
(10:41):
and forth transportation.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
I think that's an issue that the Lieutenant Governor has
championed quite a bit, widening I sixty five, and I
think there's currently a little bit of a dispute about
how to spend that road money between doing that versus
doing a north south route through Tuscalossa in the Black
Belt area down through there, Yeah, and there's there's pluses
(11:06):
and minuses to each one. I don't I would. If
you go by pure traffic numbers, I would, you'd probably
have to say that I sixty five widening makes the most.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Sense, right I would. I would agree that that's a
route I go regularly, and I always think about, how boy,
I wish there was another lane here. I'm glad they
finally are widening things south because when you go down
towards Montgomery, things starts at the road widens out pretty well,
just you know, as soon as you hit the Autaga
County line. And I always like, well man, they got
great roads here in Montgomery. If they could do this
with sixty five. And I'm glad they're finally getting sixty
(11:36):
five three lane all the way past too clear. I
think two thirty one is where they're taking it out now.
It'd be good if they could get it keep it
the whole way all the way down to Montgomery. But
I realized that takes money, and that's something that's kind
of in short supply in the state A lot of times.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Oh you know, infrastructure is an important thing. I mean,
there are a lot of different factors that come into
play when a company is looking for a location. Infrastructure,
the availability of sites. If a community doesn't have a
site for a company, it really doesn't have anything to sell.
The quality of the workforce is important. The business climate,
(12:12):
which includes the tax structure. All of that lazy in
economic development juggles a lot of balls as they're trying
to attract and grow companies.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
You mentioned tax structure, and that's a good point to
stick on because there are parts of the country where
they have great infrastructure, lots of roads, wide roads, but
they also have very high taxes. In Alabama, our taxes
are low, but then again we're not spending it on
the infrastructure. So there's I guess that balancing act of yes,
we want low taxes, but we also want decent roads
(12:44):
and school. Schools are important, number one, because for attracting
people to come here with their families, if you don't
have good schools, people aren't going to want to come
here and work. But number two, those schools, we'd like
there not to be a brain drain. We'd like for
people to graduate from Auburn in Alabama and stay here
as opposed to go work in the northeast somewhere.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Well, Don, I want to thank you so much for
coming in your book once again. I guess it's still
available for if people want to purchase. I realized it
was written, you know, six years ago, but still it
sounds to me like it's still predicting the future to
some degree.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, it's available on Amazon and your book.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
One more time is.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Buffalo Hunting in Alabama. It's on it's in paper, it's
in Kindle, and it's in audiobooks.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And most of them, so it's and it's not about
a hunting large game.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
No, No, that's that's sort of a phrase to used
within economic development when you're chasing big projects like Eliah Lilly.
It's called buffalo hunting. So that's where the phrase came from.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Well, Don, let's hope we get another another few more
buffalo in here, because we could use them here in
Alabama and we can use that to have a bigger
tax base and fix some of those roads. Sounds good,
Don Erman, thank you so much for joining me today
on Viewpoint, Alabama.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
We all want a clean environment around us, and we
also want a good return on our financial events. But
what do these two things have to do? With one another,
maybe not as much as some companies are saying hello,
I'm John Mounch and this is Viewpoint Alabama on the
Alabama Radio Network. And joining me now is the executive
director of the National Centers Free Enterprise Project, Steffan Padfield. Steffan,
(14:15):
what does ESG have to do with my ROI?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Well, that's the big looming question. So one of the
things that we do at the National Center for Public
Policy Research, and I do specifically at the Free Enterprise
Project is look at corporations and engage with them as
a shareholder. And one of the things we've noticed is
that if you go into these annual sustainability reports, they
can sometimes be fifty pages or more, you almost never
(14:40):
see any reference to the sorts of things shareholders care about,
like net present value, card calculations, return on investment calculations.
And yet the overall rhetoric is shareholder value, shareholder value,
shareholder value. So there seems to be a disconnect, and
there's at least some reason for concern that ideal, logical
pors problematic incentives are driving decision making in the ESG
(15:05):
and sustainability space that is not rooted in shareholder wealth.
Maximization or at least not being properly disclosed in terms
of what is driving the decision making.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, let's back up a little bit, Stefan, what is ESG.
What do those letters stand for and what does it mean?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Sure, so ESG stands for Environmental, Social and governance and
it typically refers to environmental, social and governance factors. And
there's actually quite a bit of debate about what they
mean in practice. I think the most favorable perspective is
they are additional lenses to apply to business decision making
to help improve that decision making. So you might say,
(15:46):
for example, rather than just having your head buried in
the financial statements, also ask yourself how this decision is
going to impact the environment. Ask yourself how it's going
to impact social concerns more broadly, for example inequality. Ask
yourself how your governance structure is impacted by these things,
so bord diversity for example. And so the idea is
(16:07):
that you're going to add these additional lenses to get
a better decision making process. Now, the concern from those
of us who are critics of ESG is that this
essentially just becomes a one way ratchet and a form
of a trojan horse for leftist ideology because it seems
to always and I'm talking like one hundred percent in practice,
(16:28):
be like you're at a you know, a convention for
you know, the Socialist Parties of America or something like that.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
So Stefan, is the thinking on these on behalf of
these companies that well, if we are if we're good
stewarts of the environment, then will be good stewarts of
your money? Or is it the thinking that these things
are good for your money? In other words, these practices
being economically you know, or environmentally responsible, socially responsible that
will yield returns from a dollars and cent standpoint.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
The thing is, it's really hard to know, and I
think it's important to recognize that there's probably not just
one answer, right. So these decision makers are people, they
are teams of people. They are driven by different incentives.
So some of it may be very much good faith
a belief that all these decisions are pro shareholder value
in the ways that you just describe, for example, but
(17:24):
maybe they can't nail it down in the way you
might a more traditional investment where you do the sort
of traditional financial metric analysis, and that's fine, there's certainly
room for that, But then there are also other issues, right,
so there's no way we can ignore the role of ideology.
I mean, when you look at a company like let's
just take Google for example, and you look at the
(17:45):
makeup of their board of directors, and you look at
their makeup of their employees, and you look at their
political contributions, I mean, is it is tilting so far
leftward there doesn't seem to be any room for any
sort of conservative viewpoint, And so there's a concern there
that that might also be driving the decision making in
a way that is unhelpfully untethered from shareholder value. So
(18:07):
getting at this is really part of what we're trying
to do at the Free Enterprise Project. We're filing a
number of proposals, We're engaging with corporations. We want more transparency,
we want more disclosure. And this is not to say
that ESG sustainability, these sorts of initiatives can't be have
a proper role as cost centers. Right, So for example,
(18:27):
regulatory compliance, goodwill generation, maybe even a type of philanthropy
they're at risk mitigation That may not necessarily be an
ROI item, but maybe just a cost center that's worthwhile
in the long term. The problem is if all of
it is disclosed under this sort of broad umbrella and
narrative of shareholder value, the risk is that everybody just assumes, oh,
(18:51):
you must be doing the same calculations that you're doing
for all your investments.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And investment companies they're required to make disclosures and they're
required to create quarterly reports and that sort of thing.
How much of that is taken up by disclosing how
they're behaving in terms of ESG scores and that sort
of thing. I mean, is that a metric that is
viewed not only by federal regulators but also by the
hedge fund managers and the people who are looking to
(19:16):
put the money in. Who's looking at this?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of people looking at it.
But unfortunately, I think we also have some very real gaps. Right. So,
in terms of so, for example, federal securities law disclosure,
one of the key threshold items is materiality, and so
often there will be requirements that material information be disclosed.
There are also financial accounting statements that need to be included.
(19:40):
The issue is that we are still very much in
flux Even though this has been around for a number
of years, you still have a lot of debate among
the relevant experts in terms of how to apply the
materiality threshold, what level of detail should the financial statements include,
and so you really don't have at least I have
not seen a lot of this sort of thing where
(20:02):
you would have something as granular as a statement that says,
all of our ESG investments that are set forth in
our annual ESG report have been authorized on the basis
of net present value calculations and are maintained on the
basis of return on investment calculations. That is something that
we have been asking for, right is either an affirmation
(20:22):
or a denial or some kind of qualification around that.
You really don't see that now. In the engagement we've
been having with corporations, some are better than others. Some
will have some language that starts getting there, you know,
tucked away somewhere else. But the level of disclosure that
I think shareholders and stakeholders more broadly would benefit from
is still very much a work in progress.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
We can see that dollars and cents wise, we can
see that's a real metric you can measure you can
actually see how much the company is spending, how much
is bringing in, and therefore what the final you know,
what they net, And then we can also see that
arbitrary ESG score. I'm wondering, is there a way you
could take it to put it on a table and say, okay,
(21:04):
you know, company, I see you know causation, Like, does
does it higher ESG score result in greater output? Or
does a higher e suco or actually hurt the economic
output of a company?
Speaker 3 (21:14):
So there certainly have been a number of studies trying
to get at that. One of the things that I've seen,
you know, sort of a few years ago, there was
all the rage and the law and economics field about oh,
we're going to start doing empiricism and that'll solve everything.
And what ends up happening is you get twelve studies
going one way and twelve studies going the other way,
and you're back to sort of using your logic to
the best of your ability. So we end up in
(21:36):
a place where you get studies going both directions. Right,
you have some good studies that say, look, there's a
correlation here. You get studies that say that's not it
underperforms the market. There's also then clearly issues of causation. Right.
It's helpful to learn about correlation, but it doesn't necessarily
tell you about causation. It could even be the other
way around. Right. A successful company can afford to invest
in what we might call luxury goods, right, that they
(21:58):
might not if they weren't profitable. So it's it is
important to look at that data, and it is out there,
but it's it has not reached the point of being
definitive enough to really say, Okay, we're all set, we
know what we're doing. My own view is that I
think actually both sides of the aisle here, So I
tend to be an ESG skeptic. I think the costs
far outweigh the benefits. But even if you're someone who's
(22:19):
a proponent of sustainability and a proponent of the issues
that typically come up under ESG, I still think you
want the best allocation or disclosure regime possible to make
sure again that the capital is being put in the
right direction and that you're not just being a victim
of greenwashing, right. And I think one way of doing
this is just again get more clear on hey, these
(22:40):
things we're doing because we are very confident that they
are right, you know, positive value right, a positive ROI
even accounting for opportunity costs. These other things we're doing
because we need to comply with the regulations, so it's
a compliance cost. This other thing is a risk mitigation.
We think, based on XYZ that there's a risk here
that we want addressed this way, not necessarily you know,
(23:02):
going to be a value enhancing you know, next quarter.
And then these other things we're doing essentially the form
of philanthropy. I think, even being more transparent about the
ways in which these investment decisions are being made or
these you know, if their donations, then donations would be
helpful because right now we're still getting you know, very
much sort of black box disclosures where you know, you again,
(23:24):
you get the ESG report, it's got billions of dollars
of outlays across you know, ten fourteen to fifteen projects,
but it's still unclear the extent to which those have
all been initiated and maintained on the basis of standard
financial metrics or some other basis.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Well, Stefan, I'm also wondering how it is that different
companies do very different things and their practices, Some might
be more I would say ESG friendly. Like, let's suppose,
on one hand, you've got a business that makes solar
panels by handicapped Guatemalan immigrants. You're gonna imagine that would
have a higher ESG score then say and a Texas
(24:02):
oil company. But both of those companies, I'm gonna say,
the Texas Oil company probably makes more profit, so it
might make more green even if it's not green. So
does ESG punish a company that, say, is involved in
production of you know, oil or something that is not
considered to be green or not considered to be fair
to people in developing countries. Isn't that kind of how
(24:24):
it works?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, I mean that's definitely part of the story. There
definitely seems to be some very real clear cases where
companies that you would think, if you were in favor
of you know, green energy or you know, development of
economic situations in countries that are further behind the average,
let's say, you would think they would get a positive
(24:47):
score and that yet they don't. I think a lot
of people will tee up. You know, Elon Musk's company,
which seemed to be a darling of ESG, and then
the minute he became a Trump supporter, all of a sudden,
somehow all the scores went negative. So you have some
examples of that. The other thing too, is, you know,
corporations do have choices that they can make. There's just
healthy disagreement and competition, right, So, reasonable people acting in
(25:11):
good faith doing all the appropriate disclosures can still vary
widely in what they think, you know, because we're all
trying to predict the future on some level, right like
it is solar going to be the thing in two
years kind of decisions, and you're gonna have wide variation.
So it's certainly not the case that folks that are
coming from my perspective are saying variation is a signal
of some kind of fraud. Not at all. It's just
(25:34):
that the relevant disclosures seem to be too opaque so far,
and there seem to be too many concerns or red
flags about influences other than this sort of good faith
decision making that we're talking about going on, and more
work needs to be done to make sure that we
keep that to a minimum.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Well, I'm even concerned, Stefan, that sometimes the ESG can
be a contradiction in terms and in other words, if
you are concerned about, like say, giving money to America,
so we're going to spend all of our money in
a developing country and make sure our products are made
in a developing country because we're concerned about the social
governance end of things, So we're going to give all
of our money to some third world country. But historically speaking,
(26:12):
third world countries have some of the worst environmental track
records as opposed to America, where we have some of
the best environmental track records. We're more responsible already, so
you could see how the E could actually be to
the detriment of the SG.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Absolutely, those sorts of conflicts are I mean, I think
another one that's very obvious from my perspective that I've
been working on is you've got a lot of companies
saying that they're pro diversity and they want to improve
the status of women, and then they turn right around
and say, well, in terms of our board diversity, if
a male identifies as a woman, we're going to count
that as a woman. So basically we have a male
(26:48):
taking the seat of a woman on the board, and
we're going to highlight that as an aspect of women's progress. Right.
So there's a lot of tensions like that. And again
I do think there's room for corporations to make choices.
But what you're pointing out in part I think is
at least a little bit touching on the issue of greenwashing. Right,
If you're going to make these blanket statements and these pronouncements,
(27:10):
and we understand that corporations are large bureauca reccies. Sometimes
the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
But there is an important agenda in terms of keeping
corporations accountable if they say they're going to do things
for the environment and it turns out that they're spending
money in a way that actually undermines that very agenda.
So for example, you know, let's flip it around for
(27:31):
a second. Right, we want to help development in countries
where there's a lot of poverty. Well, probably the best
way to do that is to encourage oil and gas development,
because that's going to be the fastest thing to allow
them to gain growth. So if you're on the one hand,
say we're pro development, but we're anti oil and gas,
I think that's the kind of conflict you're talking about.
Those are choices that corporations can make, but the disclosures
(27:53):
have to be honest, transparent, truthful, and that's I think
where a lot of the action is going to take place,
and there will be all so potentially lawsuits and regulatory actions,
you know. I mean, I think we're already seeing that
with some state attorneys general bringing actions for consumer fraud
with corporations that are doing this sort of thing. So
people are taking it very seriously. I do think there
(28:13):
are going to be some consequences that are still in
the pipeline for corporations playing a little fat, too fast
and loose with this sort of thing. But the issues
that you're talking about, I think are are very critical
and important for us to keep focusing on.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
This is Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network. My
name is John Mount, and I'm speaking with the executive
director of the National Centers Free Enterprise Project, Stefan Papfield.
Stefan for more information on any of the things we've
talked about today, You've got a website. What is that website?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Sure, listeners can go to Nationalcenter dot org. We've got
a number of projects there in addition to the Free
Enterprise Project. You can take a quick look see what interests.
You sign up for our newsletter and that's a great
way to keep up with us.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
And with regard to this, you can also use that
information to make decision on your own economically and also
contact your legislators if you'd like them to make some
decisions on your behalf from a legislative standpoint. I imagine
that's right.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
So we will have letter writing campaigns. We also have
as part of the Free Enterprise Project what's called Proxy Navigator,
So that allows retail shareholders and others to basically follow
our voting recommendations to align their shareholder voting with their values.
So definitely take a look at that app. A lot
of good information in there, even if you end up
not deciding to follow our voting recommendation.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Sefon Padfield, thank you so much for joining us today
on Viewpoint Alabama.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
You've been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program
from the Alabama Radio Network.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
The opinions expressed on Viewpoint Alabama are not necessarily those
of the staff, management, or advertisers of this station.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.