- June 19, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
A true winner would have shorted the stock beforehand. This week, with the moral authority that comes from abs you can cut sushi on, Cristiano Ronaldo cleared two bottles of full-fat Coke from a news conference desk and hailed agua instead.
Censure from the most followed human on Instagram would sting any company. So would the subsequent $4bn hit in market value. But few are quite as self-doubting as Coca-Cola. Its “2020 Business & Environmental, Social and Governance Report” (yes, two “ands”) is an 82-page apology for its core product, if not commerce itself.
At this point, it is natural to contrast the piety of the modern corporation with its rococo tax schemes. (Sure enough, Coke has had fiscal issues with the feds.) But I no longer see the first as incompatible with the second. It is better understood as an outgrowth of it. The rise of “CSR” and “ESG” — how cant loves an acronym — mirrors the gradual decline of…
