This article is your reporter’s guide to that fault line: where ESG came from; how it has been weaponized politically in the second Trump administration, and why the rest of the world sees it as essential infrastructure that cannot be repealed.
On March 17, 2008, Tribun Pekanbaru, a local newspaper that is part of the Persda newspaper group in Indonesia, published a photo showing used syringes floating in the drain of Ibu dan Anak (Mother and Child) Zaenab Hospital. A private hospital in Pekanbaru, capital of Riau Province in Sumatra, Ibu dan Anak Zaenab treats mothers and children. Like all but three hospitals in the province, it does not have a waste water treatment facility, nor does it have an incinerator to burn medical and hospital waste.