ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. On paper, it is supposed to help measure how “responsible” a company is in areas like sustainability, diversity, and corporate ethics. In practice, ESG has become little more than a corporate report card for trend-following. Companies chase ESG scores to impress rating agencies, not customers. Instead of building great products, they build glossy slide decks filled with buzzwords. Sustainability pledges, vague social commitments, and governance talking points now crowd out real business performance. What started as a tool to assess risk has turned into a branding exercise, where the goal is to hit the right checkboxes instead of hitting actual benchmarks.