The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Dana M. O’Brien of Ogunquit is the president of BioHarbor Strategies and the board director of The Cultivating Change Foundation. Jenni Tilton-Flood of Clinton is a dairy farmer with Flood Brothers LLC.
As kids, who didn’t love a big bowl of alphabet soup? A comforting meal, particularly on a cold winter’s day. What fun it was to push the floating letters through the warm broth in a vain attempt to make a nice (or not so nice) word. Just saying.
The alphabet and the words it forms are essential elements of daily information. But these days we find ourselves inundated with an ever-growing cadre of alphabetical acronyms. Who can keep track of what they all mean?
Two acronyms that are receiving outsized attention in social media, and thus our national conversation, are DEI and ESG. DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. It is a term used to describe policies and programs to promote the representation of different groups of individuals. ESG means using environmental, social and governance factors to assess the sustainability of organizations. ESG is a set of metrics used to measure environmental and social impact, which many companies have been tracking for more than 50 years.
Sadly, political opportunists have hijacked and twisted DEI and ESG into something they are not. Falsehoods spread through social media are scaring people, causing companies to revoke past diversity, inclusion and sustainability commitments, and infiltrating the minds of our political leaders.
Recently, Tractor Supply Co. — a business that many of us in Maine’s agricultural industry frequent and depend upon, and a business that depends upon the people of Maine to be its employees — made what we view as a terrible decision to very publicly obliterate its DEI and ESG pledges. The company did so after being pressured by a congressional candidate’s social media blitzkrieg grounded in distortions and mean-spirited behavior. In a statement with more than a hint of recrimination toward our LGBTQ+ family, friends and neighbors, Tractor Supply also walked away from sustainability and the climate-smart farming practices driving a modern ag economy. We hope Tractor Supply will reconsider its decisions but suspect its corporate leadership will have a difficult time doing so after bending so publicly.
As leaders in agriculture, we wish to share our perspective on DEI and ESG. Despite the scary rhetoric and social media memes that attempt to frame these terms in a negative light, we see them — and the work happening to support them — as quite positive. In fact, underpinning DEI and ESG are values that are deeply embedded in our families and in the rural communities we call home. Values like community, teamwork and respect. And boldness, innovation and environmental stewardship.
Rural America’s heart pulses with these values, as does the heart of rural Maine. Every day in towns across our country, families are befriending neighbors with different beliefs and perspectives, farmers are proactively adapting to changing weather patterns through innovation, and land-grant university researchers and students are meeting societal obligations to ensure people across the planet have abundant and healthful food. These behaviors personify diversity, inclusion and sustainability.
We applaud when companies and organizations proactively commit to measuring their actions against DEI and ESG goals. Studies show that doing so promotes job satisfaction, higher work outputs and retention among employees. It also promotes employee attraction, which is perennially listed as a top priority in Maine economic development reports.
We say enough already. Let’s not fall for a flawed and misguided characterization of DEI and ESG, which serves no one and takes valuable attention away from mighty big challenges facing our state and nation. Life in Maine is more than alphabet soup. It means something. And we need our business and political leaders to understand that.