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Your editorial “Saving capitalism from the culture wars” (FT View, June 22) tiptoes around the elephant in the conference hall of debate when it comes to the subject of environmental, social and governance investing, as does almost all of the recent discussion.

The purpose of a business is to deliver goods or services to customers that they value, in such a way as to constitute a viable operation. The role of the board (as made clear in the UK Companies Act 2006) is to ensure that executives deliver this objective in a way that takes account of the wishes of the key stakeholders and reflects the current views of society regarding culturally acceptable standards. Failure to do this will result in failure of the business.

The thing often overlooked is that, unless promoting it is the goal of the business, ESG simply represents some of the factors that a business has to take into account, and give an appropriate weighting to, in planning strategy and implementing a business plan. This is not to dismiss ESG’s importance, but to give it primacy is not consistent with the board’s obligations under the Companies Act.

Nigel Kendall
Worplesdon, Surrey, UK