In the American investment community, asset owners, their managers, and a growing number of financial analysts are considering the ESG strategies, performance and outcomes of companies in portfolio – or being considered for portfolio or inclusion in benchmark or index.  That has been the case in Europe for a much longer period.  U.S. corporate boards and managements are adopting effective ESG strategies to guide their “sustainability journey,” and to address the investor concerns.
And so there is the “business case” and the “investment case” and the “supply chain case” and so on – responding to the rising interest in ESG performance and the sustainability journey on the part of stockholders and stakeholders.  This is creating the “new, new normal” in investing, and in corporate strategy-setting.  Result?  In our survey of S&P 500 Index companies’ focus on sustainability, we found that in 2013 three out of four U.S. companies in the widely-used benchmark were publishing reports to tell the story of their sustainability journey.
This week, Forbes’ contributing commentator Chris Skroupa of Skytop Strategies published an interview with G&A Institute’s leadership, Hank Boerner and Louis D. Coppola:  Capitalizing on Capital Markets Through ESG.”  Chris came to know and appreciate the work of the G&A team through our collaboration to present an important event at the NASDAQ Market Site in June.  There’s information in Chris’s report.
Here’s the link to the story:
Capitalizing on Capital Markets Through ESG
(Source: Forbes | Monday – March 16, 2015)