A systematic analysis of corporate earnings calls and fund marketing reveals that the term “ESG” is disappearing from Wall Street’s vocabulary — even as the underlying investment practices it describes remain firmly in place. The rebrand is underway. The agenda hasn’t changed.
The Disappearing Acronym
In 2023, 40% of S&P 100 companies used the term “ESG” in their annual report titles. By 2024, that figure had dropped to 25% — a 37.5% decline in a single year. Mentions of ESG on S&P 500 earnings calls dropped nearly 60% between 2021 and 2023. By 2025, Bloomberg reported that climate-related language on earnings calls had declined by three-quarters.
The term that once appeared in every corporate sustainability report, investor presentation, and annual meeting proxy statement was quietly being scrubbed from the lexicon. But the investment practices it described — screening portfolios based on environmental, social, and governance criteria, engaging with companies on climate targets, voting proxies to advance diversity goals — continued unchanged.
The Political Catalyst
The ESG rebrand was driven by politics, not principle. Beginning in 2022, Republican state treasurers, attorneys general, and legislators launched a coordinated campaign against ESG investing. States like Texas, Florida, and West Virginia restricted state pension fund investments with asset managers that used ESG criteria. Congressional hearings targeted major asset managers for alleged breaches of fiduciary duty. The term became politically radioactive — a liability that drew regulatory scrutiny, legislative threats, and culture-war media coverage.
The response from Wall Street was not to abandon the underlying practices but to rename them. “ESG” became “sustainability.” “ESG integration” became “responsible investing.” “ESG risk management” became “material risk assessment.” The departments were reorganized. The fund names were changed. The marketing materials were updated. And the actual investment processes — the screening, the engagement, the proxy voting — continued under new labels.
The Evidence
The pattern is observable across the industry. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, shifted its public messaging from ESG-explicit language toward broader “sustainability” and “transition” terminology. State Street reframed its voting guidelines around “material financial risks” rather than ESG factors. Vanguard withdrew from the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative while maintaining climate-related investment policies.
Fund naming conventions changed while underlying mandates persisted. An ESG fund that was renamed a “Sustainable Growth Fund” still applied the same screening criteria, the same exclusion lists, and the same engagement frameworks. The SEC’s Climate and ESG Task Force, created during the Biden administration, saw its focus shift during 2024, but the regulatory framework it had established continued to influence corporate behavior.
The State-Level Divide
The regulatory landscape split along predictable political lines. California continued advancing ESG-related disclosure requirements, mandating corporate climate risk reporting. Other states adopted anti-ESG stances, restricting public fund managers from using non-financial criteria in investment decisions.
This bifurcation created a bizarre outcome: companies operating nationally had to satisfy pro-ESG requirements in some jurisdictions and anti-ESG restrictions in others. The solution, for many, was to maintain the practices while eliminating the label — ESG without saying ESG.
The Fiduciary Fiction
Both sides of the ESG debate invoke fiduciary duty — the legal obligation to act in beneficiaries’ financial interests. ESG advocates argue that environmental and social risks are material financial risks that prudent investors must consider. ESG critics argue that incorporating non-financial criteria violates the duty to maximize returns.
The vanishing of the ESG label doesn’t resolve this tension — it just makes it harder to track. When asset managers screen portfolios based on climate criteria but call it “risk management” rather than “ESG,” the practice is identical but the political target is removed. The debate continues, but the combatants have adopted camouflage.
For investors trying to understand what their money managers are actually doing with their capital, the great ESG rebrand has made an already opaque industry even harder to see through. The label may be disappearing, but the agenda — for better or worse — is not.
Eduardo Bacci is an investigative journalist at The Investigative Journal. Data sources include Morningstar sustainable investing data, Bloomberg earnings call analysis, SEC regulatory filings, and corporate annual reports.