Debunking the media's lies about ESG social credit scores and the Great Reset

We’re used to legacy media misleading, concealing, and even downright lying about the important issues facing America — especially when it comes to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores and the Great Reset movement. And on many occasions, we don’t respond with a detailed response. After all, most Americans don’t read or watch legacy media outlets anymore.

However, sometimes, we come across something so dishonest that we simply can’t stay quiet, because if we were to, our heads would probably explode. (And we happen to be very fond of our heads, thank you.) On March 18, the Idaho Statesman — the largest newspaper in Idaho — published one of those truly blood-boiling articles we just can’t ignore.

In the piece, which was written by the paper’s opinion editor Scott McIntosh, the author promotes one false claim after another about ESG scores, their use, and the Great Reset movement — all in an attempt to discredit us and the countless other people in Idaho working to protect the rights of American families and businesses.

(It’s worth noting that we submitted this article to the Idaho Statesman for publication last week, but McIntosh declined to publish it. McIntosh didn’t give us a reason for the decision, but we suspect it’s because he doesn’t like it when others reveal how dishonest the Statesman has become. Shocking, right?)

By the way, if you think this article doesn’t apply to you because you don’t live in Idaho, think again. ESG is an international phenomenon that affects every single American, regardless of the state you live in.

ESG metrics are a kind of social credit scoring system, similar to the model now being used in China. Their purpose is to create a new framework for evaluating businesses, banks, investors, and governments, so that instead of just looking at profits, losses, debt, employee satisfaction, and other traditional economic metrics, an organization is evaluated for its commitment to battling climate change and devotion to social justice causes, including, for example, the racial composition of a company’s workforce.

ESG systems already have awards and punishments tied to them. Companies with “good” ESG scores are often rewarded with lower lending rates, better bond ratings, and other advantages. Some companies with “bad” ESG scores are forced to pay more for loans or denied access to banking services altogether.

And you don’t need to take our word for it, either; there are plenty of industry and academic reports showing the impacts of ESG, including a recent detailed report by Morningstar’s Sustainalytics, which regularly promotes ESG metrics.

According to McIntosh, who claims to have been “honored” for his “watchdog reporting” by the Idaho Press Club and the National Newspaper Association, worries about ESG social credit scores are “dubious” and have become the “latest boogeyman for ... far-right conspiracy theorists like Beck.”

Among the many supposedly “dubious claims” cited by McIntosh as proof of why you can’t trust people like us is a line from a resolution recently proposed by Idaho lawmakers that reads, “ESG standards are designed to create a ‘great reset’ of capitalism and to revamp all aspects of our society and economy, from education to social contracts and working conditions.”

If passed, the resolution McIntosh cites would require Idaho legislators to develop and propose a bill in 2023 to stop banks and other financial institutions from using ESG scores to discriminate against businesses and individuals.

According to McIntosh, that line in the resolution is an example of the many “conspiracies” surrounding ESG. Ironically, McIntosh is right — but not in the way he thinks. There are many conspiracy theories about ESG scores and the Great Reset. Some come from uninformed people on the right, but even more come from dishonest “journalists” like McIntosh.

You see, what “watchdog” McIntosh didn’t tell his readers is that the text he used as one of his proofs of the “right-wing” conspiracy theory of the Great Reset is actually a quote from one of the world’s most influential advocates of ESG, Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum (the people who host that lavish conference in Davos every year).

In June 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Schwab and long list of leaders from corporations, activist groups, government agencies, banks, and Wall Street firms launched a campaign to transform the global economy called the “Great Reset” — their words, not ours.

In an article highlighting the campaign, Schwab wrote, “The world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions.”

Boy, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

I wonder why McIntosh didn’t explain to his readers that the resolution clearly identifies Schwab as the source of the quote, or why he didn’t cite the entire statement by Schwab, which ends with, “Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”

McIntosh goes on in his article to say that ESG is just a “product of the exercise of individual and economic rights, giving investors an option of where to put their dollars” (a talking point used by countless banking lobbyists to defend ESG).

You see, there’s nothing to worry about, Watchdog McIntosh promises. ESG is just the “free market”!

This popular myth from people trying to obscure the truth about ESG is not only a lie, it’s the epitome of hypocrisy, because the very same politicians and activists defending ESG are also the ones who often advocate for bigger government, more regulations, and more taxes — the opposite of free-market economics.

ESG systems are designed to force businesses and consumers to adopt the values, ideas, products, and services the wealthy elites imposing social credit scores are calling for, and those elites regularly work hand in hand with government and central banks to advance ESG goals.

For example, the World Economic Forum and U.S. State Department entered into a special partnership in November at a COP26 climate change event.

In 2020, the Federal Reserve hired BlackRock, the world’s wealthiest asset manager and a leading proponent of ESG, to help the Fed purchase corporate bonds — purchases that directly benefited BlackRock.

The SEC proposed mandated ESG disclosure rules this month, and the European Union is now on the verge of mandating ESG metrics for many companies in the EU.

Of course, many corporations are happy to go along with the ESG movement. They, like everyone else on Wall Street, are benefiting from trillions and trillions of dollars promised by banks and investors to support “sustainable” causes. And investors like BlackRock are happy to spend the money, since they’ve become rich in the wake of the recent spending sprees by governments around the world and their affiliated central banks.

ESG systems aren’t merely focused on big businesses, either. Companies like Bank of America have already developed individual ESG scores for investors, and FICO analysts admit that ESG will likely be used in the future by financial institutions to determine credit risk for individuals and small businesses.

ESG systems are the greatest threat to freedom since the fall of the Soviet Union. Anyone who tells you otherwise is ignorant or lying — and we're not sure which is worse.

Glenn Beck is the founder of Mercury Radio Arts and the co-author, with Justin Haskins, of The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First Century Fascism. Justin (Jhaskins@heartland.org) is the director of the Socialism Research Center at The Heartland Institute.