Earth Day ESG Profile: Private Prisons

Earth Day ESG stories of corporations making good on their promise of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals, to please both investors and activists.

For Profit Prisons have been a controversial subject that watchdog organizations such as the ACLU have reported on for years (link). Many do not know that some of these companies within the “Prison Industrial Complex” are actually publicly traded organizations. CoreCivic (NTSE: CXW) and Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE: PLTR) have come up with some ESG initiatives that likely please their stockholders and infuriate their activist adversaries.

“As a data driven organization, CoreCivic works with the best in class solutions to increase shareholder value,” stated Patrick Swindle, EVP and COO. “Palantir Technologies showed that we could become carbon neutral in our facilities by self generation of our energy needs.”

“Science Fiction is a reality now,” stated Palantir CEO Alex Karp. “Ideas from the film The Matrix and scientific concepts from the book Electric Body, Electric Health (link), inspired our team to architect a carbon neutral, self-generation energy system for prisons.”

Swindle explained, “the concept is pretty simple, use the incarcerated assets as batteries. For those prisoners who are placed in solitary confinement, this arrangement helps the time go by faster. We become carbon neutral in a matter of weeks.”

States such as Washington state, who recently voted to remove references to the death penalty from state law, there is an expected increase in incarcerations. However, private prisons are illegal in the state, so the state is looking for energy balancing solutions to counteract this increased energy requirement.

Notable tech investor Peter Thiel is rumored to be investigating innovative ways to meet energy demands for EV’s and the homelessness crisis. He was overheard in a downtown Coffee Bean stating, “Using Palantir’s data, the next big thing will be to take the homeless off of our streets and turn them into EV chargers.”

Reddit users were clamoring that the estate of the late Irene Cara has been approached to use her hit song I Sing The Body Electric for an ad during next year’s Super Bowl.

CXW and PLTR stock jumped 25% in afterhours trading just before Earth Day on Saturday, April 22.