Peak ESG investing, restaurant tipping and why Americans are rich – but unhappy
The Globe and Mail
Canada's national news organization ?? Sign up for our Morning Update newsletter: https://tgam.ca/daily-newsletter
Hello, and welcome back to Business Cycle – a weekly roundup of commentary and analysis pieces from The Globe and Mail, reflecting on the biggest business and investing stories affecting Canadians. In this week’s edition, we ponder if we’ve hit peak ESG investing, how restaurant workers shouldn’t need to pay fees to get their own tips, and why Americans – who are richer than Canadians and Europeans – are more unhappy.?
(Subscribe to this newsletter from The Globe and Mail’s LinkedIn page to get a notification when the latest edition is published every Thursday.)
Peak ESG investing may have come. Coal may not be the great valuation drag after all
By Eric Reguly
Investing on ESG principles – which stands for environmental, social and governance – became a phenomenon in recent years, with investors everywhere gravitating toward businesses that were trying to reduce their destructive impact on the planet. The reward, in theory, was sustainability, reflected through higher valuation measures.
But as The Globe’s Eric Reguly writes, some time in the past couple of years the sheen came off the ESG movement. Numerous companies were accused of “greenwashing” – investing in carbon-reduction or carbon-offset projects that were less clean than advertised.
“Has peak ESG hit the market? It may have, which makes you wonder why Teck Resources, Canada’s premier diversified mining company, is selling its cash-cow coal division. Other resources giants and the funds that invest in befouled industries seem to be reversing course on ESG; they, quietly so, are painting themselves a lighter shade of green and are not getting punished for doing so.”
Restaurant workers shouldn’t have to pay fees to access their own tips
By Corey Mintz
Earlier this year, food writer Corey Mintz wrote about XTM Inc.’s software for distributing restaurant tips via prepaid cards. While the cards can be used directly, users would have to pay a fee to transfer the money into their own bank accounts. Essentially, restaurant workers were sometimes being charged fees to get paid.
He recently learned that the Ontario government’s proposed labour reforms, announced Tuesday, include requiring employers who pay tips via most electronic methods to allow their employees to select the account where the tips are to be deposited.
“My concern about the use of XTM was the likelihood of repeating the Uber/Airbnb playbook, where the ramifications of disruption technology go unaddressed until the companies with the biggest market share have become too entangled in our economy for lawmakers to act.”
领英推荐
Americans are richer than Canadians and Europeans – so why aren’t they happier?
By John Rapley
Whereas economies in Europe and Canada are still bumping along more or less where they were before pandemic lockdowns, the U.S. has bounced back strongly. The result is that American gross domestic product per capita now stands some 20 to 50 per cent higher than its G7 partners, depending on the country.
Yet for all that, writes political economist John Rapley, surveys of self-reported happiness reveal them to be less satisfied with life than their peers, including Canadians.?
“Mainstream economic theory presumes humans to be utility maximizers – or, as a colleague of mine once put it: people want more stuff, and the more stuff they have, the happier they are. But while the assumption that more money equals more utility is treated as canonical in mainstream economic theory, there’s surprisingly little evidence for the belief.”?
More business opinion pieces we’re following:
The Globe's business opinion pieces are commissioned and edited by Ethan Lou. If you would like to write in this section, please send pitches to [email protected].?
Thank you for reading our latest edition! We'll be back next Thursday with another Business Cycle roundup. Let us know what you think of this new newsletter by sending an email to [email protected]. Until then, sign up for more great newsletters from The Globe and Mail and continue reading at www.theglobeandmail.com.