Personal enlightenment and civil debate are inextricably intertwined

In my book IntegrityWorks, we call things I say repeatedly… Royisms. One of them applies to ESG.??“Personal enlightenment and civil debate are inextricably intertwined.”?Civil debate about Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues is limited at the moment because ESG has become political. Limited civil debate on ESG reduces our enlightenment and our ability to make the world a better place.?Making ESG a part of activist investing is causing most of the tension.?Unfortunately, the information shared in the chart above (Source: TAUW) that shows that ESG investing is not simply one thing are not commonly presented. That there are different intentions and anticipated returns associated with different approaches to sustainable investing should be part of the baseline from which civil debate happens.

Maybe those of us who are less interested in forcing companies implement our political ideas through investing should go back to the phrase CSR?

I see civil debate as a way of learning the truth.?Below I paraphrase a few of the 16 principles of civil debate that I listed in IntegrityWorks.

• Try to describe your opponent’s position to them
• Take joy in your opponent’s ability to make a good point
• Avoid questioning their motives
• If your debate partner wanders off the subject of the debate GENTLY bring them back to the topic
• Rather than waiting for them to stop talking to tell them your next point, ask them to explain what they just said. Use the extra time to listen more and refine what you are going to say next.

As a result of the current world wide epidemic of uncivil debate,?supporters won’t discover legitimate problems with ESG and consequently supporters won’t be able to help fix the problems. And people frustrated with ESG won’t learn about legitimate ESG solutions and can’t help implement them.

– To have integrity you have to tell the truth.

– To tell the truth, you have to know the truth.

– To know the truth, you have to become enlightened.

– Civil debate is profoundly helpful to our own enlightenment.

– Personal enlightenment will help us see the truth.

And as Jim Carey once said, “The truth shall set you free.”

Our ability to make good decisions about the environment, social issues and governance depends on our integrity.?I have been living on planet Earth for 68 years and I can not remember a time when improving our collective integrity was as important as it is now.

You should consider buying?IntegrityWorks?on Amazon. It’s a short fun book and all proceeds go to the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics.