With help from Jasper Goodman

ANTI-ESG ANTIPATHY — Republican politicians who were hoping to be swept into the White House on a wave of “anti-woke” sentiment have run into unexpected headwinds in the form of voter disinterest.

They seem to be getting the message, too.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis initially styled his presidential campaign around the idea of himself as the avatar of the GOP war against corporate environmental, social and governance policies. But he barely mentions the topic in the economic agenda he just rolled out. And upstart Vivek Ramaswamy, whose claim to electoral relevance was rooted in attacks on ESG, has also moved on to other topics in his bid for the White House.

Those shifts are the latest sign that Republicans’ attempt to make sustainable investing a campaign issue might not be working. A Morning Consult survey of nearly 2,000 voters conducted in June found that less than half of voters think corporations are pushing “wokeness” too far — a number that drops to 33 percent with regard to Wall Street.

The signs of potential voter resistance have been around for awhile. A report released last year by Penn State’s Center for the Business of Sustainability and ROKK Solutions, a Washington-based bipartisan public affairs firm, found that majorities in both parties oppose government limits on ESG investments. Republicans were even likelier than Democrats to oppose restrictions, according to the report.

And there are also signs of resistance at the state level, where Republican officials have led the way in efforts to punish companies over their policy choices. The American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of conservative state lawmakers, didn’t even consider adopting a “model policy” at its conference late last month to serve as a template for governments that want to stop doing business with companies whose business practices they oppose. The group had twice previously declined to endorse the measure.

Conservative politicians have faced pressure from long-time allies like the American Bankers Association, which has used its influence at the state level to kill off or water down some of the more far-reaching (and costly) anti-ESG measures.

“ABA and our state association colleagues appreciate that ALEC members chose again not to pursue anti-bank ESG model policies,” Blair Bernstein, an ABA spokesperson, said in a statement. “We remain hopeful that ALEC will continue to take a thoughtful approach to these issues and respect the free market principles on which it was founded.”

To be sure, the issue isn’t dead — or close to it. U.S. House Republicans just capped what they designated as “ESG Month” in July by passing a package of legislation out of the Financial Services Committee. But those measures are viewed as messaging bills that are unlikely to be passed into law.

“Congressional Republicans have squeezed most of the juice that they’re going to be able to get out of corporate wokeism on ESG issues — because they have held hearings, they’ve introduced pieces of legislation,” said Ron Bonjean, the Republican strategist who is a co-founder and partner at ROKK Solutions.

There are some signs of success, however, in the sense that the politicization of the issue has blunted companies’ willingness to publicly promote environmental and social initiatives. At the same time, there is concern among some in the party once known for its support of free markets and big business that the attacks might eventually backfire.

“The populist side [of the Republican base] is happy to go after any large institution, whether it’s a company, whether it’s government,” said Jon McHenry, a Republican pollster. “The more establishment, more traditional wing of the party doesn’t really want government getting involved.”

A CLIMATE OF DENIAL — The Sunshine State is going multimedia in its efforts to protect its public school students against educational materials viewed as reflecting a progressive agenda.

Florida’s Department of Education has approved classroom use of Prager University Foundation videos with content teaching that climate activists are like Nazis, wind and solar power pollute the planet, and recent extreme heat is part of the Earth’s natural temperature cycle.

PragerU CEO Marissa Streit says the goal of the videos is to rebalance schools that have been “hijacked by the left.”

For now, Florida has approved using the videos only in civics and government at district discretion for younger children. Some PragerU climate-denial videos are classified under non-climate categories, which could enable their use in Florida.

But education advocates fear that the state has granted a stamp of approval that will spread the videos to classrooms elsewhere, Scott Waldman reports for POLITICO’s E&E News.

SAND PAPER — The paper industry continues to outshine all other materials in terms of recyclability: About 68 percent of paper consumed in the U.S. last year was recycled, the American Forest and Paper Association shared exclusively with POLITICO.

That number is steady compared with 2021 as the industry has met or exceeded a 63 percent recycling rate in every year since 2009. For comparison: Glass and aluminum are at 31.3 percent and 34.9 percent, respectively, according to the most recently available EPA data, and plastics have never been recycled at a rate of more than 10 percent.

Paper’s relative success, though, is driving the industry to take a cautious approach — and in many cases, outright oppose — state-level proposals to overhaul the recycling system by forcing packaging producers to foot the bill. AF&PA has been lobbying state lawmakers who are considering these measures, creating another hurdle for advocates of producer-responsibility systems.

“If you’re putting a material in there that’s responsible for the contamination (of the recycling system), you should probably be the one making financial contributions toward system improvements or cleaning that up,” said Terry Webber, AF&PA’s vice president of industry affairs. “We don’t want to be in a position where we are subsidizing infrastructure and investment that really benefits other materials or addresses problems that we’re not the cause of.”

Webber credits investment to create market demand as key to the industry’s recycling success — including the nearly $7 billion completed or announced investments in manufacturing between 2019 and 2025. Expanding access and consumer education while minimizing contamination in the recycling stream are three areas for improvement, Webber said.

GAME ON — Welcome to the Long Game, where we tell you about the latest on efforts to shape our future. We deliver data-driven storytelling, compelling interviews with industry and political leaders, and news Tuesday through Friday to keep you in the loop on sustainability.

Team Sustainability is editor Greg Mott and reporters Jordan Wolman and Allison Prang. Reach us all at [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected].

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