Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Messer and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Freedom of speech may be protected in the US by
Speaker 2: the First Amendment, but it's still something that's the focus
Speaker 2: of much attention thanks to the proliferation of misinformation on
Speaker 2: digital platforms. What's been happening on college campuses in the
Speaker 2: wake of the Israel Hamas war and what we regularly
Speaker 2: hear from politicians Satan Federal officials, for example, already grappling
Speaker 2: with back to back hurricanes that have killed hundreds across
Speaker 2: the Southeast. They've been with another disaster related threat, disinformation
Speaker 2: over their relief efforts and the cause of the storm,
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories, hate speech, especially on acts after Hurricane Aline
Speaker 2: devastated a region, with former President Donald Trump and Elon
Speaker 2: Musk amplifying unverified allegay You mean.
Speaker 3: Like weather forecasters making up the storm.
Speaker 2: Or controlling the weather, or controlling the web, or the
Speaker 2: response from FEMA, and you know, FEMA having to move
Speaker 2: out of an area because of threats from a militia.
Speaker 2: This world, our next guest understands quite well. At least
Speaker 2: the dissemination of information in what free speech is versus
Speaker 2: what fearless speech is. Mary An Franks is a professor
Speaker 2: in intellectual property, technology, and civil rights law at George
Speaker 2: Washington University. She's testified on Capitol Hill on the connection
Speaker 2: between censorship and small business. She's got a new book out.
Speaker 2: It's called Fearless Speech, Breaking Free from the First Amendment.
Speaker 2: She joins us from Washington, DC. Professor, good to have
Speaker 2: you with us. I want to just read from your
Speaker 2: prologue because you argue that your new book takes speech seriously.
Speaker 2: It's about speech first and the First Amendment. Second, you
Speaker 2: argue that the dysfunction of the current American free speech
Speaker 2: discourse what I just spoke about, can be attributed to
Speaker 2: the inversion of that order. What do you mean?
Speaker 4: What I mean by that is that we have this
Speaker 4: incredibly narrow, very legalistic, really reductionist, largely incoherent idea about
Speaker 4: what freedom of speech is that's based on perceptions and
Speaker 4: misperceptions of a legal doctrine, of course, the First Amendment,
Speaker 4: and when we really think about what is important in
Speaker 4: a democracy, the kinds of hard questions we have to
Speaker 4: ask about what kinds of speech should be promoted and
Speaker 4: what kinds of speech should be punished. We need a
Speaker 4: much richer and more nuanced understanding of speech than you
Speaker 4: can get from that legal doctrine.
Speaker 3: All right, So what is your definition of freedom of speech?
Speaker 4: The definition I would use is to say the most
Speaker 4: important thing for democracy, that is, the most vital kinds
Speaker 4: of speech that you would want to protect in a
Speaker 4: democracy are going to be those kinds of speech that
Speaker 4: the ancient Greeks refer to as fearless speech. And the
Speaker 4: way that they described that really essential form of speech
Speaker 4: was that you had to be someone who was speaking
Speaker 4: truly as their own identity, so not trying to cover
Speaker 4: themselves in some kind of performance or try to disavow
Speaker 4: some distance between them and their speech. And you had
Speaker 4: to say, speak courageously in a critical way about something
Speaker 4: or someone who was more powerful than you, and the
Speaker 4: risk that you would be taking and speaking that kind
Speaker 4: of truth would be to yourself as opposed to trying
Speaker 4: to cause harm to others.
Speaker 2: You know, you say this, and what actually comes to
Speaker 2: mind is the way that Senator J. D. Vance has
Speaker 2: answered the question about whether or not Donald Trump won
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty election. He's done it over and over
Speaker 2: again a couple weeks ago in the vice presidential debate
Speaker 2: with Tim Walls, Governor of Minnesota, and then also most
Speaker 2: recently with The New York Times when he was asked,
Speaker 2: I believe four times whether or not Trump won the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty election, and his answer was always the same.
Speaker 2: I'm focused on the future, not necessarily answering the question.
Speaker 2: He's focused on censorship and what tech platforms did. When
Speaker 2: it comes to censorship, is he doing fearless speech there?
Speaker 4: He's definitely not doing fearless speech there. And he's also
Speaker 4: misstating what censorship is. And this is one of the
Speaker 4: reasons why I wrote the book is that for all
Speaker 4: the problems and I do highlight a lot of the
Speaker 4: problems with the First Amendment doctrine, we still want to
Speaker 4: be accurate about what it actually says. And what it's
Speaker 4: very clear about is that censorship means when the government
Speaker 4: is trying to make private individuals say something they don't
Speaker 4: want to say, or is punishing them for something that
Speaker 4: they've said. Social media platforms making decisions about what they
Speaker 4: want on their platform or not is not censorship. It
Speaker 4: does not violate the First Amendment. I think he does
Speaker 4: know that, and Heed's trying deliberately to create misinformation about
Speaker 4: the First Amendment itself.
Speaker 3: So when it comes to policing platforms, then what is
Speaker 3: your thoughts on social media? Is it media? Is it playful?
Speaker 3: We know it's dangerous, We've done a lot of reporting
Speaker 3: on that, but it's also a place where a lot
Speaker 3: of folks get their news, something that we are involved
Speaker 3: in on a daily basis. So, you know, newspapers, magazines,
Speaker 3: things were policed, traditional media, linear television. If we had
Speaker 3: said some wrong in the past, we had to correct it,
Speaker 3: or there might be a lawsuit, or somebody would make
Speaker 3: a phone call. We still correct it. So I'm just curious.
Speaker 3: But it feels like, you know, social media is a
Speaker 3: wild wild West. So I don't know, does it need
Speaker 3: to be policed? And I'm just curious how you think
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 4: Well, it depends a lot on what the outcomes are
Speaker 4: that we want from those platforms. When we say we
Speaker 4: go there for entertainment, we go there for news. If
Speaker 4: we care about those spaces in that way, then we
Speaker 4: need to have the kinds of rules, or the kinds
Speaker 4: of standards, or the kinds of design to make those
Speaker 4: outcomes happen because that kind of speech doesn't just happen
Speaker 4: by itself. You don't get to good conversations, entertaining conversations,
Speaker 4: high value conversations, by just letting everybody do whatever they
Speaker 4: might want to do, because that isn't actually a free
Speaker 4: speech protective position. What you'll get is a bunch of chaos.
Speaker 4: You'll get a lot of people who are saying really provocative, stupid, uninformed,
Speaker 4: really outrageous things, and they will drown out everybody else. So,
Speaker 4: if you want quality speech, if you want accurate speech,
Speaker 4: you have to have some kinds of standards in play.
Speaker 4: And every platform knows this because they all have standards
Speaker 4: in play. There are standards against spam, there are standards
Speaker 4: against all kinds of rules of privacy, regulations, any number
Speaker 4: of things that every platform is already engaged in. The
Speaker 4: question is are you going to wield that power wisely
Speaker 4: and are you going to do it in a transparent way,
Speaker 4: and are you going to take responsibility for the things
Speaker 4: you leave up as well as for the things that
Speaker 4: you take down.
Speaker 2: I mean, we know how some platforms treat this stuff
Speaker 2: because of what's happened on AX in the last couple
Speaker 2: of years. But I also think about incentives and the
Speaker 2: way that incentives could be misaligned. Right now, you can
Speaker 2: get paid on platforms by views, So your incentive is
Speaker 2: to create something that people will see. People see stuff.
Speaker 2: When the algorithm sees that people are interacting with it,
Speaker 2: leaving comments on it, reposting it, then it's it in
Speaker 2: other people's feeds. Whether that's true or not, it doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like the system is designed to reward what you
Speaker 2: refer to as fearless speech.
Speaker 4: Definitely not, and that shouldn't be surprising because what we
Speaker 4: often forget, and partly because the tech industry and major
Speaker 4: players in the tech industry try to make us forget this,
Speaker 4: is that this isn't the public square, This isn't some
Speaker 4: sort of democracy experiment. This is a corporation that has
Speaker 4: a product, and it's trying to sell you that product,
Speaker 4: and it's trying to tell you that what you're doing
Speaker 4: by speaking or posting or whatever it is is freedom
Speaker 4: of speech. But all it is from the corporations perspective
Speaker 4: is profit. And so the only real standard that is
Speaker 4: being used in those cases is what's going to make
Speaker 4: that company profit, And so of course it's not going
Speaker 4: to align with democracy, of course, it's not going to
Speaker 4: align with high quality content. It's not even going to
Speaker 4: have the regular guardrails as you mentioned, of newspapers, radio stations,
Speaker 4: TV stations, all of whom have to take responses ability
Speaker 4: when there is false information on them. When you know,
Speaker 4: you know that the New York Times can get sued,
Speaker 4: We know that Fox News can get sued if there's
Speaker 4: outright false statements being broadcast. So why is it that
Speaker 4: the tech industry gets this pass where they're allowed to
Speaker 4: do whatever they would like or do nothing, and allow disinformation, misinformation,
Speaker 4: truly harmful content to simply proliferate simply because it lines
Speaker 4: their pockets.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm curious about what you think about the
Speaker 3: protests that we've seen on universities and campuses over the
Speaker 3: last year or so as a result of you're.
Speaker 2: At George Washington University School of Law.
Speaker 3: You are at you know, the Hamas attack on Israel
Speaker 3: and then obviously Israel's response, and so it felt like
Speaker 3: freedom of speech was certainly being questioned or maybe not
Speaker 3: allowed equally. So help us with that one, because that
Speaker 3: was certainly problematic. As we know, a lot of university
Speaker 3: heads are no laws are there as a result, So
Speaker 3: walk us through your thinking about that and how it
Speaker 3: might apply.
Speaker 4: I think the first thing to note about that conflict,
Speaker 4: and I say conflict because it's ongoing right that this
Speaker 4: is some of the campuses are struggling with right now,
Speaker 4: is to say that this should be proof in the
Speaker 4: first instance, that the First Amendment doesn't help us here.
Speaker 4: It doesn't resolve these questions. You can invote free speech
Speaker 4: all you want, you can invoke the First Amendment, but
Speaker 4: it's not actually going to answer the question of what
Speaker 4: kind of community do you want to have at any
Speaker 4: given university, and what are the kinds of threats to
Speaker 4: that kind of community that you should be focused on.
Speaker 4: And what I think was really tragic about so much
Speaker 4: of the demonstration activity that happened in the last few
Speaker 4: months and the responses by universities is that they in
Speaker 4: some ways looked over their own communities and we're speaking
Speaker 4: to I think audiences that were more like members of Congress,
Speaker 4: or maybe the donors, or maybe the media, but they
Speaker 4: weren't speaking to their students. They weren't speaking to their
Speaker 4: own communities and hearing what people were trying to communicate,
Speaker 4: and of course the things they're trying to communicate are controversial,
Speaker 4: They are complex, they can be misinterpreted, they can be
Speaker 4: rightly interpreted in ways that are maybe concerning. But what
Speaker 4: you really should have seen from these universities is some
Speaker 4: leadership about their own community and some grace and some
Speaker 4: generosity for the students as they struggle through incredibly complex,
Speaker 4: fraught issues. That's the kind of leadership that I really
Speaker 4: wish we had seen, as opposed to grandstanding for donors,
Speaker 4: members of Congress, and others who were trying to weaponize
Speaker 4: those demonstrations to make their own political points.
Speaker 2: I want to get right back to Maryanne Frank's professor
Speaker 2: in intellectual Property, Technology, and Civil Rights A lot George
Speaker 2: Washington University. She's got a new book out, Fearless Speech,
Speaker 2: Breaking Free from the First Amendment. She joins us once
Speaker 2: again from Washington, DC. The theme of burning is a
Speaker 2: big part of your book, Fearless Speech, Professor, burning crosses,
Speaker 2: burning women, burning books, burning down the public square, and
Speaker 2: then finally you conclude with choosing your own way to burn.
Speaker 2: Why is that omnipresent in your book?
Speaker 4: For multiple reasons, but one of the main ones is
Speaker 4: the scene that I opened the introduction of the book
Speaker 4: with which is the burning of the press. The newspaper,
Speaker 4: a newspaper called the Memphis Free Speech, and it was
Speaker 4: Ida Wells's newspaper, and it was burnt at the ground
Speaker 4: after she published an editorial that she had written about
Speaker 4: the truth about lynching. And it was a moment where
Speaker 4: I thought, this is really a repeating theme throughout American history.
Speaker 4: We have this belief, this mythology about the First Amendment,
Speaker 4: that we protect radical speech and we protect dissidents. And
Speaker 4: then you look back to the people who have spoken
Speaker 4: out against slavery, You look back at the people who
Speaker 4: were speaking out against lynching, You look at the women
Speaker 4: who were fighting for the right to vote. You look
Speaker 4: at the moments now in terms of Black Lives Matter
Speaker 4: protests and then Me Too movements, and you see that
Speaker 4: time and time again, the mob has come for those individuals.
Speaker 4: They have suppressed that speech. It's been violently suppressed in
Speaker 4: a way that sometimes took the form of literal burning
Speaker 4: of newspapers, but sometimes took the form of incredibly onerous
Speaker 4: lawsuits or persecutions in other ways. So time and again,
Speaker 4: those who are trying to be most fearless in their
Speaker 4: speech have been suppressed, they have been violated, they've been assaulted.
Speaker 4: And that's really a theme that I wanted to emphasize
Speaker 4: in the book.
Speaker 3: You know, just in your intro to you know, you say,
Speaker 3: unfettered free speeches does indeed exist, but only for some
Speaker 3: Americans today in America, delusional stalkers have a First Amendment
Speaker 3: right to terrorize their victims. Pornographers have a First Amendment
Speaker 3: right to glorify sexual violence. For profit businesses have a
Speaker 3: first Amendment right to deny services to gay people and
Speaker 3: to advertise this fact. Anti abortion ze, let's have a
Speaker 3: first amendment right to mislead pregnant women with fake pregnancy
Speaker 3: and clinics. It goes on and on and on. So
Speaker 3: it is interesting. So what this is such a tough one.
Speaker 3: So what's the answer. What's the way forward? How do
Speaker 3: we preserve what is so a part of our American culture,
Speaker 3: right of being able to say anything? You know? But
Speaker 3: how can we kind of preserve that but have the
Speaker 3: right guard rails? Or can we or can we not?
Speaker 4: I think we can, And I think it starts with
Speaker 4: acknowledging that we've never done it. I think it starts
Speaker 4: with acknowledging that this is our whole mythology about the
Speaker 4: First Amendment. The mythology about our country generally has always
Speaker 4: been at best an aspirational idea. It's never been a
Speaker 4: completed project. So for the First Amendment, specifically for the
Speaker 4: question of free speech, we really have to be confrontational
Speaker 4: about how throughout our history the First Amendment has not
Speaker 4: stood up for free expression, at least not for those
Speaker 4: who were speaking out against the most powerful parts of society.
Speaker 4: It has shown up for the people who are the
Speaker 4: enemies in some ways of democracy and of those who
Speaker 4: are trying to be egalitarian and progressive. So what we
Speaker 4: have to do first is we have to admit that
Speaker 4: we have to stop telling ourselves this bedtime story about
Speaker 4: the First Amendment that we've always protected free speech and
Speaker 4: acknowledge and really grapple with the fact that we haven't.
Speaker 4: We have chosen winners and losers for the First Amendment.
Speaker 4: The moment we admit that, then we can have an
Speaker 4: honest discussion about what belongs in that part of the
Speaker 4: First Amendment that says this should be most protected, and
Speaker 4: what belongs in that part that most of us would
Speaker 4: agree should be something that we're allowed to regulate fraud,
Speaker 4: if we think about defamation to some extent, if we
Speaker 4: think about the kind of food and drug labeling, this
Speaker 4: information that you might work about, if there weren't any
Speaker 4: kinds of protocols for those kinds of issues. We need
Speaker 4: to think about and be honest about the fact that
Speaker 4: we've always made assessments about harm and speech and injury,
Speaker 4: and let's talk about how we can do that in
Speaker 4: the fairest, most transparent way and really think about the
Speaker 4: context that we're speaking in and care about the harm,
Speaker 4: not just abstract harms, but actual harms. Are the one
Speaker 4: we've been talking about all this time, That is, there
Speaker 4: are people who are going to buy because of her
Speaker 4: Ria information.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you, so, then, is it the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court who figures that out?
Speaker 4: I wish I could say that we should have any
Speaker 4: confidence in the Supreme Court to do that. I don't
Speaker 4: think they're going to figure that out anytime soon. But
Speaker 4: that doesn't mean that the people can't figure these things out.
Speaker 4: The one takeaway here about the First Amendment being neither
Speaker 4: necessary nor sufficient for freedom of speech is that we
Speaker 4: can do free speech. We can do fearless speech, without
Speaker 4: waiting on the Supreme Court, without waiting for the law
Speaker 4: to change, we can actually lift up, amplify, highlight those
Speaker 4: people who have taken those risks even though they had
Speaker 4: no protections, and we can make those people at the
Speaker 4: center of our discourse and we can model ourselves after them.
Speaker 2: Professor, what's the link between Americans trust in media or
Speaker 2: a lack thereof, and the misunderstanding of the First Amendment
Speaker 2: in your view, I'm thinking of a report from Gallup
Speaker 2: that came out just yesterday that says that trust in
Speaker 2: media remains at a low, with only thirty one percent
Speaker 2: of Americans expressing a quote great deal or fair amount
Speaker 2: of confidence that the media will report the news fully,
Speaker 2: accurately and fairly.
Speaker 4: I think it is a sign that we have at
Speaker 4: least two competing problems, or at least two problems that
Speaker 4: are contributing to this, and one is just a general
Speaker 4: lack of First Amendment literacy in our public right. We
Speaker 4: don't have really good education about what the First Amendment
Speaker 4: actually does and what it's supposed to protect because we're
Speaker 4: losing out on that clarity. The few parts of the
Speaker 4: First Moment that really are clear say that you've got
Speaker 4: to make sure that the government isn't trying to throttle
Speaker 4: the media. You've got to make sure that that members
Speaker 4: of Congress aren't trying to intimidate researchers. Those are the
Speaker 4: things that actually are quite clear and quite good about
Speaker 4: the First Amendment, And if we could get clarity on those,
Speaker 4: then we could understand why it's so frightening that the
Speaker 4: government is trying to take hold of media and social
Speaker 4: media in all the different ways. But that's partly a
Speaker 4: lesson for the media were at large too, which is
Speaker 4: help educate the public about what the First Amendment does
Speaker 4: and doesn't do.
Speaker 3: What hope do you have that things changed?
Speaker 4: I have hope that things can change, because we are
Speaker 4: at a very dangerous moment in history. But we have
Speaker 4: had these kinds of moments before, and there have been
Speaker 4: people who have been willing to stand up to say
Speaker 4: the things that are really hard, to act in a
Speaker 4: way that is against their own self interest, and to
Speaker 4: try to rescue democracy and to make that promise of
Speaker 4: equality become a reality rather than just an empty promise.
Speaker 4: And so I do still have hope for that because
Speaker 4: I still have hope in people.
Speaker 2: I don't know you don't seem optimistic, Carol.
Speaker 3: Speaking of speech, I feel a little speechless because I
Speaker 3: think it's such a big discussion of our time, right
Speaker 3: in terms of we talk so much about free speech,
Speaker 3: and that means people can say things that you don't
Speaker 3: agree with or can be uncomfortable. I don't know, though,
Speaker 3: there's a line that I think you can cross obviously
Speaker 3: when it creates harm, that is it, should it still
Speaker 3: be protected? I guess I would.
Speaker 2: Say no, But yeah, and I think the way that
Speaker 2: just the speed at which speech travels now mm hmm
Speaker 2: is so fast because of the technology and the velocity
Speaker 2: of it. Exactly yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: Well, Marian gave us a lot to think about timely,
Speaker 3: certainly as we uh, you know, we're thinking in the middle,
Speaker 3: like in the thick of it, and try to be
Speaker 3: so careful about the information certainly that we talk about, right,
Speaker 3: and so careful. But that's not the case everywhere in
Speaker 3: the world. Marion Frank's professor of an intellectual property technology
Speaker 3: civil rights law at George Washington University. Her new book
Speaker 3: Check it out, fear Less, Speed Breaking Free from the
Speaker 3: First Amendment.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and
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Speaker 2: It is Bloomberg Business Week. A lot of news when
Speaker 2: it comes to the ESG world today. Okay, On the
Speaker 2: environmental side, back to back hurricanes Colleen and Milton expected
Speaker 2: to cost insures thirty five billion dollars to fifty five
Speaker 2: billion dollars. That's according to Moody's RMS Risk Modeling Unit.
Speaker 2: Then there's the social side. Rights in ESG in case
Speaker 2: anybody's keeping track stiantists hauling employees back to the office
Speaker 2: walking back a work from home policy. Then I got
Speaker 2: a governance headline for you too, your customer doing rounds.
Speaker 2: I like that Boeing preparing to raise as much as
Speaker 2: twenty five billion dollars in debt inequity, giving the planemaker
Speaker 2: the financial resources to withstand that strike and work its
Speaker 2: way through a series of operational setbacks. All these headlines,
Speaker 2: by the way, courtesy of the Great ESG Daily Newsletter
Speaker 2: from Bloomberg News. You can sign up for that on
Speaker 2: the Bloomberg terminal.
Speaker 3: I got to say every day when you read in
Speaker 3: on the top, we have a bunch of stories. Well,
Speaker 3: this is Jade Wong's world. She's Chief investment Officer at
Speaker 3: Calvert Research and Management, a Morgan Stanley owned firm that
Speaker 3: focuses on ESG and so called responsible investments. She joins
Speaker 3: us right here in our Bloomberg Interactive broker's studio. Really
Speaker 3: nice to have you here with us. We have talked
Speaker 3: about ESG. I feel like I'm trying to think how
Speaker 3: old the industry now is but for a long time,
Speaker 3: but it does feel like it's going through a growing
Speaker 3: up period, an evolution, if you will. All the rage
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty twenty twenty one fell out of favor
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two. How would you characterize it right now?
Speaker 5: I think it's a period of opportunity for responsible investors
Speaker 5: who are really focused on integrating financially material ESG factors
Speaker 5: into their investment. There was a period, as you say,
Speaker 5: when it was kind of the hot topic, and so
Speaker 5: lots of firms were jumping in to get into and
Speaker 5: take advantage of that interest. And I think the firms
Speaker 5: that are genuinely integrating ESG insights that are financially material
Speaker 5: because it's good for the investments that they're looking at
Speaker 5: are the ones who are going to continue to do that,
Speaker 5: and so Calvert is in that situation. We've been doing
Speaker 5: responsible and.
Speaker 3: Guys were kind of out there in front early on.
Speaker 5: Yep, we've we've been around since over forty years now
Speaker 5: and have always been focused on responsible investing. It is
Speaker 5: all that we do. So we have a large team
Speaker 5: entirely focused on understanding and determining the financial materiality and
Speaker 5: that I think is a really important part.
Speaker 3: Isn't that though I think we got away from it.
Speaker 3: And forgive me because I feel like ESG got messed
Speaker 3: up with green or doing good completely, And I think
Speaker 3: the whole point is you have to look at a
Speaker 3: company and what are their like risks from environmental factors,
Speaker 3: right from social government. That's what this is about.
Speaker 5: That's what this is about exactly. I mean, it's really
Speaker 5: understanding the industry, understanding the company, and really understanding what
Speaker 5: are the ESG risks that are going to make a
Speaker 5: difference in that company's performance over the long term. So
Speaker 5: it's not necessarily just the recycling that they do, but really,
Speaker 5: how are they treating their people, how are they managing
Speaker 5: their energy? You know, all of those factors that really
Speaker 5: make a difference over the long term.
Speaker 2: What is what is ESG versus quote unquote responsible investing? Like,
Speaker 2: what's the distinction between the two in your world?
Speaker 5: In our world? I think it's nomenclature. Responsible investing For
Speaker 5: us is the way that we've always kind of talked
Speaker 5: about it because we take the approach where we're not
Speaker 5: just looking at there's much more beyond just the E,
Speaker 5: the S and the G. Right, we also do corporate engagement.
Speaker 5: We also vote our proxies a certain way that are
Speaker 5: in line with responsible investment criteria as well.
Speaker 3: But what does responsible mean? Is it responsible to climate
Speaker 3: change and making sure we doesn't get worse? Is it
Speaker 3: responsible to investors and making sure that the steps that
Speaker 3: the company takes is thinking about shareholder value and doesn't
Speaker 3: do anything financially that harms that.
Speaker 5: First and foremost, it's always fiduciary duty. Right, we are
Speaker 5: focused on delivering value to our shareholders. I think responsible
Speaker 5: also means that we're also considering multiple stakeholders in addition
Speaker 5: to our investors. Right, you want to be responsible to
Speaker 5: the communities that companies are operating, and you want to
Speaker 5: make sure that those companies are treating their employees well.
Speaker 5: But all of those issues matter because they will over
Speaker 5: the long term, be able to deliver long term value creation.
Speaker 2: For on one area that I think in Carol knows,
Speaker 2: I'm a broken record about this, but just United Airlines,
Speaker 2: for example, we just reported on what they did in
Speaker 2: the most recent quarter, how the outlook looks. We talked
Speaker 2: about the one point five billion dollar buy back. We
Speaker 2: talked about adjusted earnings per share for the third quarter.
Speaker 2: We didn't talk about how much sustainable aviation fuel the
Speaker 2: company used. We didn't talk about their net performance score
Speaker 2: with their customers. We didn't talk about how employees are
Speaker 2: feeling about working at the company. Because in our world.
Speaker 3: We talk about you.
Speaker 2: That doesn't signet moves the companies stock.
Speaker 5: So we're long term investors. And I think that many
Speaker 5: of the issues that you know, you kind of just cited,
Speaker 5: that you didn't talk about briefly on your on your show,
Speaker 5: is are the factors that actually we are focused on
Speaker 5: right Because for example, if you don't have strong human
Speaker 5: capital management, how are you going to retain the best talent?
Speaker 5: And over the long term that turnover has a cost,
Speaker 5: strikes all of those things, right, but it's over the
Speaker 5: long term where you're going to be able to kind
Speaker 5: of see that play out into stock performance or into
Speaker 5: you know, the company's bottom line. There has been a
Speaker 5: lot of research that we've done specifically around what are
Speaker 5: the material ESSU factors in how do they interplay with
Speaker 5: equity upside and equity returns? And it proves out the
Speaker 5: consideration that is key is the financial materiality aspect.
Speaker 3: So all right, to tell us about investor interest and
Speaker 3: the money flows coming in, I mean institutional interest. As
Speaker 3: ESG has kind of gone through its cycles and growing
Speaker 3: up period, it feels like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, we're still seeing strong interest, particularly globally,
Speaker 5: you know, I think that a lot of the focus
Speaker 5: obviously within the US there has been a little bit
Speaker 5: more of a pullback. It's certainly not as strong as
Speaker 5: you're eluding the last couple of years. But I would
Speaker 5: say that globally there's a big surge of interests, definitely
Speaker 5: in Europe, even more so in Asia. So and there
Speaker 5: are different pockets of I'd say a country that are
Speaker 5: still very much driven by are compelled by responsible investing,
Speaker 5: certainly millennials as that wealth kind of accumulates, right, there
Speaker 5: is also kind of this interest in, Hey, I want
Speaker 5: to make money, but I also want to take care
Speaker 5: of the planet. I want to be able to treat
Speaker 5: people well, and so those kind of are more integrated
Speaker 5: in how they're thinking about investing.
Speaker 2: You mentioned, Jade that the ESG screening process that's in
Speaker 2: the DNA of the company. Something also in the DNA
Speaker 2: of the company is the firm's Women's Principles, and it's
Speaker 2: the twentieth anniversary of that. Help us understand what exactly
Speaker 2: that is and what that entails.
Speaker 5: Sure, so, the Calverts Women's Principles were the first gender
Speaker 5: based investment principles that were focused exclusively on promoting, advancing, protecting,
Speaker 5: investing in women in the workplace. And so they were
Speaker 5: created in two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: I can't believe that was twenty years ago.
Speaker 5: Twenty years ago, I know. And they were actually the
Speaker 5: forerunners for the Women's Empowerment Principles introduced by the United
Speaker 5: Nations in twenty ten. So they really represent to corporations
Speaker 5: a framework, a code of conduct on how you can
Speaker 5: retain attract women in your workforce. That was how it
Speaker 5: was initiated, created twenty years ago, but today I would
Speaker 5: say that there's a much broader impact in that it
Speaker 5: continues to serve as a guideline for how do you
Speaker 5: manage people in general? Right, Like, how do you attract
Speaker 5: the best talent in what is an increasingly diverse talent pool?
Speaker 2: Is it a screen?
Speaker 5: Also, No, it's a set of principles that are really multifaceted.
Speaker 5: So for example, it will one component is on employment
Speaker 5: and compensation, another is around health, safety and freedom of violence. Right,
Speaker 5: so really focusing on creating a culture.
Speaker 3: That is Should it be a screen for companies? Ten seconds?
Speaker 5: I think it is an important framework for investors, particularly
Speaker 5: to really understand how companies are managing their human capital.
Speaker 3: Cool stuff, Jay, Thank you so much. Jade Wong, she's
Speaker 3: Chief Investment Officer of at Calvert Research and Management. Joining
Speaker 3: us right here in our interactive broker studio Carol Master,
Speaker 3: Tim Stanevik, And this is Bloomberg BusinessWeek.