More western investors are dropping the term ESG investing as we progress through 2024. “Responsible business” is now the more preferred term as ESG is losing its status in corporate jargon, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Companies have trained CEOs on how and when they refer to ESG, but that doesn’t meanbusinesses are abandoning ESG programs, initiatives, or requirements. The only difference is that businesses are “not publicly touting them, or describing them in different ways,” the WSJ says.

The bottom line: When it comes to how you communicate about ESG, the WSJ says, “less is more” — be as precise as possible, with as few adjectives and adverbs as you can.

Even fund managers have purged their lexicon of ESG as newly debuted ESG-focused funds are dropped, the Financial Times says. Suspicious of what it entails, they have “baulked at increased scrutiny of sustainability claims by companies and asset managers,” continues the salmon-colored paper. In 2H 2023, only six funds cited environmental, social and governance criterions. This comes in contrast to the 55 in 1H 2023 and the near-double yearly average between 2020 and 2022, according to data from investment analysis platform Morningstar Direct cited by the Financial Times.

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