ESG investing is hotly contested in national headlines, making me wonder how deeply it runs in Michigan health policy.

What is ESG?

ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance, as ideological investment strategies. It is the business and finance corollary to grade school Critical Race Theory (CRT), as well as Implicit Bias Training (IBT) mandate for Michigan health license renewal.

Collectively, these programs share a mission to use public institutions to promote the leftist worldview commonly known as “woke agenda” and “cancel culture.”

At Hillsdale this week

I had already encountered this aggressive ideology as a nurse. Baker College instituted a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) requirement for BSN instructors in 2021, and Michigan’s IBT license rule rolled out soon after.

So when Hillsdale College invited me to hear Vivek Ramaswamy speak about ESG this week, I attended with one question in mind: 

“Was Michigan’s IBT mandate influenced by corporate ESG funding?”

Although Mr. Ramaswamy did not address my question, he did share some thought-provoking insights. It’s not so much the size of Big Tech, he said. It’s their willingness to carry out Big Government’s political demands.
But there’s more: Big Tech was part of a quiet deal made with Big Government years ago. Their current political compliance can be seen as  the price of avoiding anti-trust break-up by federal enforcers.

With that in mind, I did some research.

ESG and Michigan health policy.

1. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBS) is in the news this week for awarding grants to “reduce racial disparities in maternal health.” The BCBS Foundation’s mission includes ESG, also evident in the nearly $3 Million it granted in 2022 to, among others, Michigan schools of medicine and nursing, and the Michigan State Medical Society.
2. “Pfizer’s values and commitment to long-term sustainability through ESG goals are at the heart of the way we strive to responsibly live our purpose…”
3. University of Michigan is investing $300 Million into ESG companies and SE Michigan banks. (Detroit Free Press, Nov, 2022)
4. According to Forbes this week, “… cryptocurrency was sold to our nation’s state and local government pensions as consistent with their ESG objectives.”
5. A bill proposed last fall would have prohibited using ESG investing in Michigan pension systems. State of Michigan investments almost certainly leverage ESG. So far, I haven’t seen which funds, or how much. Please enlighten me in the comments.

Bottom Line: is ESG in my town?

ESG advocates speak of “embedding” within corporate healthcare’s overall strategy. Similarly, you may recall grade schools that denied using CRT, while teaching CRT concepts within children’s curricula.

Do your local health, business, and financial institutions promote ESG? Some buzzwords to look for:

• Sustainability
• Carbon footprint
• Responsibility Report
• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
• Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
• Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)
• Health Equity/ Health Care Disparities
• Birth Equity

Clearly, some large Michigan institutions are deep into ESG. They’re extending it to influence our local healthcare institutions, “sustaining” with their funding what is not sustainable either morally or economically.

The political agenda and coordination among institutions are clear, too. The state is awash with COVID dollars, and it’s easy to map the political centers benefiting most from BCBC-MI grants and UM investments.

However, given the many layers of state health policy, I have to question that Michigan ESG is limited to a simple money and politics equation. Other pressures and incentives seem likely to be involved – just as there were with Big Tech.