Bloomberg reports:
The SEC is preparing a plan for companies to report more information about their employees as it eyes new environmental, social, and governance disclosures, Chairman Gary Gensler said.
Gensler didn’t give specifics about the ESG proposal in remarks he made at a financial market regulation conference Thursday. But he said earlier this year that the agency is considering what investors want in areas such as workplace diversity.
The best data on what investors really want comes not from surveys (as evidenced by the disastrous performance of the polling industry in recent years, which has cast doubt "on all types of survey research"), but from what people actually do when given the opportunity to vote on shareholder proposals relating to ESG issues.
In 2018, Angelo Martinez of Equilar reported on the low rate of support:
In 2020, according to a Gibson Dunn report, only two shareholder proposals relating to employment workplace diversity actually passes. The average vote was only 32% in favor.
To be clear, my point is not that workplace diversity is undesirable. My point is only that the SEC's claim that the new disclosure mandates in the works are responsive to investor demand is simply false.