The question that won't go away Walk into any boardroom, asset management committee, or sustainability conference in 2026, and you'll hear the same argument on loop. One side insists that companies with strong environmental, social, and governance practices outperform, that ESG is the smart money signal of the next decade. The other side calls it a costly distraction, a tax on shareholders dressed up in moral language. A third camp shrugs: ESG is neither virtue nor vice, just