Numerous Reasons To Oppose South Carolina’s Proposed Tax Shift
April 7, 2025South Carolina’s Wokeism Mentioned On Fox News
Ruby red South Carolina has some unique bragging rights when it comes to our woke bona fides …
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n Fox News recently, congresswoman (and, as of late, South Carolina gubernatorial candidate) Nancy Mace said the Palmetto State has gone woke, to which Gov. Henry McMaster responded that wokeism was not in the state government “It is not in these walls (click here).”
To be clear, I am personally not a Nancy Mace fan. In fact, I think her temperament, judgement and oversharing of personal drama would be a disaster for SC, but on this one point she is on target! Over the past few years, I have written numerous articles supporting this claim. In fact, I laid it out in an article about how SC is supportive of Green New Deal Initiatives (click here). Here are some other examples of wokeism in the Palmetto State, but to be fair, they are not all within state government.
- DEI in local governments (click here)
- SC’s lack of significant pushback on ESG social credit scoring (click here)
- Charleston filing the first Climate lawsuit in the southeast (click here)
- SC awarding billion-dollar incentive packages to woke EV companies (click here and here)
- Powerful and conservative SC Senator featured speaker at Al Gore‘s Climate Action Summit at Furman University (click here and here)
It seems clear to me that SC is decidedly more woke than many other red states.
WHY IS SC SO WOKE?
I have wondered why this would be. Maybe SC has been chasing federal dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act, or perhaps it is because SC has the highest number of jobs created by foreign direct investment (FDI) in the entire nation. Is it because in addition to the SC Dept. of Commerce’s new international office in London (click here), their office in Munich, Germany (which just celebrated its 50th anniversary) is the largest US state office in Europe? Perhaps it’s because Gov. McMaster passed an Executive Order (2022-31) in Oct. of 2022 prioritizing our state’s efforts to recruit EV-related businesses to SC.
In fact, in 2022-2023 companies announced more than $9.7 billion in electric vehicle (EV) investment across the state (click here and here). States like Florida understand that wokeism comes from inside and OUTSIDE the walls of state government, such as through our universities or the consulting firms we hire to guide our state. But largely, it is fostered by the corporations within the state, so when we actively recruit companies from Europe, we invite wokeism into the community.
Stay Connected!
SUSTAIN SC – CALLING THE SHOTS
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ne woke (and, one could argue, elitist) entity quietly operating in SC is the non-profit SUSTAIN SC. With strong support from the Governor and the SC Dept. of Commerce, Sustain SC appears to be very influential. Corporations pay up to $20,000 to belong, but it is unclear what they receive for their investment. Others who have “committed” include MUSC, Clemson University, the Town of Mt. Pleasant, Coastal Carolina University, Vision Greenwood and many more!
As the Executive Director of the Mom and Pop Alliance of SC (a small business advocacy organization founded five years ago due to the impact of Covid policies on small business), I know first-hand how hard it is to launch and grow a statewide non-profit, yet Sustain SC seemed to have sprung up overnight in 2022 with unbelievable resources, both financial and influential.
Every year they have held a Sustainability Summit. Previously, Gov. McMaster has been a featured speaker, but in 2024 Lt. Gov. (and now gubernatorial candidate) Pamela Evette was featured for their “Circularity Fireside Chat (click here).” They describe the Summit as a “members only event by invitation held at exclusive locations across the state.” Here’s a description from 2022. “At nightfall, a fireside chat shifted the conversation to SDG (UN Sustainability and Development Goals), a perfect segue to the following day, the launch of Sustain SC’s pilot study with Ernst and Young (EY) to address South Carolina’s low SDG ranking (click here).” In other words, how to get SC more aligned with the UN’s agenda. “We believe SC can be a model on a global scale for our work done at the local level.”
According to Sustain SC our state is ranked 37th out of 50 in the 2021 UN’s Sustainable Development Report, saying in part, “Today Sustain SC and Ernst & Young (EY) have begun laying the groundwork to improve the ranking of South Carolina.” SDGs are 17 interconnected goals developed in 2015 by the United Nations and intended to be achievable by 2030, according to the Sustain SC website.
While not all of what Sustain SC does is woke, the amount of attention they get from state governmental leaders is fascinating. The Mom and Pop Alliance has been unable to get even a brief meeting with our Governor.
SC CAN SERVE AS A MODEL
For some reason, we were the only state in the nation whose companies decided to partake in the Fraunhofer Sustainability Maturity Assessment in an effort to improve our UN SDGs ranking. According to Fraunhofer USA Alliance, “It was refreshing to see that contrary to other states of the U.S. there’s a high interest in sustainability in SC. We are proud to serve as a model for other states in our First Pilot study partnering with EY to identify areas where SC is falling behind.” “While this free assessment was offered nationwide, SC is the only place that has taken advantage of it.”
Now, I don’t believe SC should stop seeking foreign investment – but it appears SC is an outlier in how heavily we pursue EU based corporations. Furthermore, legislators should be fully informed of not only the upside of these deals but also the risks and downside. They need to understand that things have changed greatly since the BMW deal; now there are real risks to bringing in corporations that don’t share SC’s or America’s values.
Finally, secret backroom deals with taxpayer money need to end.
(Getty)
ESG IS NOT OVER
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t is important to note that while ESG (Environmental, Social (Justice), and Governance) (click here) compliance from American companies is now mostly in retreat, it is NOT completely gone and can be required from international companies with locations in SC because, unlike in the U.S. where it was just strongly encouraged, in the European Union ESG metrics are still REQUIRED BY LAW even if located outside of the EU. I just spoke with a SC small business owner with 4 employees who said it took them days to complete their ESG compliance/code of conduct paperwork outlining the details of their sustainability, their organization’s carbon footprint, etc., and answering questions about their DEI policies. They stated they had to be classified as a woman-owned business to maintain the contract with the corporation. All of this was required by the European corporation for which they provide services. The choice for them was to comply or lose the business.
In the words of Leslie Skardon, CEO of Sustain SC, “We have 1,200 companies in SC who are not headquartered here, and they have reporting requirements (i.e. ESG). How can we help them meet their targets here in SC and then report them back?”
Although the Mom and Pop Alliance has worked to educate state leaders on the fact that ESG compliance is the law in the European Union and as such they should be mindful of that when recruiting international companies, this all seemed to unfortunately fall on deaf ears as VW was given a 1.3-billion-dollar incentive package (click here and here). Our Governor and some SC legislators continue to take trips to Europe in search of EU partnerships (click here). We know that some of these past partnerships, such as BMW (made in the 1990’s) have GREATLY benefited SC, but we don’t hear much about the many tax-payer-funded deals that have failed. Perhaps it is time to assess whether more is always better, and to question who holds the power in our state – elected representatives, or the SC Dept. of Commerce (click here). Also, perhaps we should consider a law in our state exempting American-based businesses from having to ever report any type of ESG metrics to companies based outside of our country.
In addition to the Mom and Pop Alliance of SC being one of the first to provide educational workshops across the state on the pitfalls of ESG, we also introduced meaningful legislation in our State House to push back on it, which was met with strong resistance from both state government and the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce. Perhaps this is why we were only able to get one weak ESG bill signed into law (click here). While other red states passed stronger bills helping to protect small businesses and citizens from the negative consequences of ESG, we were unable to gain the traction needed to do so in the Palmetto State.
WHO KNEW GEORGETOWN SC HAD A UNITED NATIONS CENTER?
To give you a little more context as to the history of Sustain SC, consider Coastal Carolina political science professor Pamela Martin who was hired in November 2022 as a Fellow for the organization. According to Sustain SC this new role was created specifically for Martin. “She has the very unique skill set as one of the few people using the SDG framework at the global level and translating it down to the county level.” Ms. Martin has written extensively on ending fossil fuels and in promotion of Earth Jurisprudence.
Earth Jurisprudence is the wild idea that our legal system is too human-focused and needs to be more “Earth-focused.” These enthusiasts advocate for granting legal rights to non-living things such as mountains or bodies of water, and they work to create new laws that recognize natural ecosystems as having inherent rights.
Additionally, Martin is the Founder and current Executive Director of RISE (Resilience, Innovation and Sustainability through Education), which is a UN Regional Center on Education for Sustainable Development. There are 200 such centers globally but only a dozen or so in the US, and (What do ya know!?) the only one in the coastal southeast is in Georgetown, SC! They aim to mainstream global objectives into Georgetown and other local communities as well as college campuses, and to “prepare the local leaders of tomorrow.”
Falls Park on the Reedy in Greenville, SC
SUSTAINABLE SOLDIERS OF THE FUTURE
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peaking of preparing future leaders, Sustain SC has this objective through their Sustainability Leadership Initiative (SLI), held at Furman’s Shi Institute, and has already graduated 3 classes of “sustainable leaders.” Applicants have come from a variety of places such as SC Department of Commerce, SC office of Resilience, Sen. Tim Scott’s office, universities, political organizations, and major corporations. According to the SLI website, those selected for this 8 month “exclusive” program make up “a robust cross-boundary stakeholder network of state leaders… identifying pathways and executing solutions for a sustainable future. The goal is to envision a world that meets the needs of all people within the means of the living planet.”
Of course, there is no way to judge if these sustainability trainings are worthwhile or not because most of the descriptions of them are (in my opinion) a bunch of “fluff” words tossed in a “word salad,” but I do know that many employers we speak with are not looking to hire environmental activists. In fact, they have issues with the activist mindset our universities are producing. Furthermore, there is confusion on the definition of SUSTAINABILITY, as it is so rarely defined.
Here is what came up when asking Google “What is Sustainability?” In addition to environmentalism it states, “it is essential to consider sustainability as a subject that addresses multiple interconnected human issues such as racial injustice, gender equality, and distribution of wealth.”
Parents beware!
SUSTAINABILITY TAKES A VILLAGE
In SC we see that promotion of this agenda has been a group effort, and we wonder where all the money is coming from for these various organizations. Sustain SC works in coordination with many other entities such as the Furman Shi Institute, Upstate Forever, Charleston Regional Development Alliance, The Open Space Institute, and the SC office of Resilience, to name a few. The SC Office of Resilience (SCOR) website now stresses conservation as well as natural disaster prevention (also a UN objective), but last year, SCOR’s website was more focused on improving SDGs in our state, explaining that SDGs are an international measure of sustainability and “connects state efforts to broader, international movements for an environmentally, socially and economically just world.”
Wait, what!! How do we achieve a socially and economically just world? Why were SC tax dollars spent to push this agenda from the SC Office of Resilience?
Looks like Congresswoman Mace is right – ruby red South Carolina has some unique bragging rights when it comes to our woke bona fides! These issues highlight the need for small business owners to have a stronger voice in Columbia, for parents to be aware of what is being promoted in our universities, and why all South Carolinians need to be well informed of what is happening in our state.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Diane Hardy is a former nurse anesthetist turned entrepreneur, who (along with her business partner) recently opened her second franchise bakery in Greenville. She is the Executive Director of the Mom and Pop Alliance of SC, which she founded during Covid upon discovering South Carolina’s over 400,000 small businesses had little representation in our State House. The Alliance provides education, communication, and advocacy for SC’s family-owned businesses.
Her passion for South Carolina’s small business is strong, and as such she donates her time to the organization, accepting no salary or government funding. Her love for our state isn’t new. Before launching the Mom and Pop Alliance she was the founder and host of The Palmetto Panel (2014-2019), an annual statewide conference highlighting issues impacting South Carolina. Diane has a bachelor’s degree in nursing and psychology from Michigan State as well as a master’s degree from MUSC.