The ESG Weekly: Opioids Rage During COVID‐19 and Politics in Georgia

The COVID‐19 pandemic has overshadowed the opioid epidemic in the US, but the opioid crisis in the has grown during the pandemic creating more problems for communities and companies that have been blamed for the crisis. During the 2021 proxy season, companies are disclosing more opioid related liabilities to shareholders causing dissent in some cases. We discuss both the opioid epidemic and these shareholder reactions. Then, as a new controversial voting rights law is passed in the US state of Georgia, we discuss why some companies wade into politics and others stay away.