Our world is at a tipping point, making it critical for brands—and all of us—to focus on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). Recent attempts to politicize ESG as “woke capitalism” are misguided at best and potentially perilous. When the Business Roundtable redefined the purpose of a corporation in 2019 to benefit all stakeholders, not just investors, it seemed a groundbreaking concept. But at its core, the idea was based on creating value, the only difference being that it was shared value. Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase & Co. , noted, “Major employers are investing in their workers and communities because they know it is the only way to be successful over the long term.” This concept upended Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman’s focus on shareholder primacy. But it wasn’t a new idea. For much of the 20th century, there was a prevalent view that public companies, as opposed to Privately held ones, should serve a different purpose. Harvard Law professor Merrick Dodd argued in 1932: “The business corporation is an economic institution which has a social service as well as a profit-making function.”