It’s ESG Survey & Query Time — Public Companies Are In Response Mode

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by Hank Boerner & Louis Coppola

Barrage… Avalanche… Tidal wave… Tsunami…“Survey Fatigue…”
These are terms we hear all year ‘round but especially in the spring of the year as corporate managers describe for us what they often feel as the inevitable flow of third party ESG / Sustainability surveys, forms and various types of questionnaires come pouring their offices. It’s spring – survey time!  Some large-cap companies may receive 200 or more such queries during a year.  What to do!

Effective Response and Engagements Will Be Key to Success
in Communicating Corporate Sustainability Strategies and
Demonstrating Leadership for Investors

The challenges posed to company managers are:

  1. First to decide which queries will matter most to the company and to investors and select those out of the large flow for response;
  2. decide what to do with the rest of the third party queries;
  3. decide what information to be disclosed is material, of relevance and of importance to the third party and beyond to that organization’s user base;
  4. internally source and organize the data and narrative needed in responding to put the best story forward to maximize the positive perceptions of the stakeholders using the data in some way;
  5. and as we hear, [typically] debate internally what can and should be disclosed and why — beyond the mandated financial and related disclosures.

These challenges grow in importance each year as many more asset owners and managers either directly pose the questions to companies — or do so through an army of third-party ESG analytics firms.

The stakes are high and getting higher; the most efficient and effective of the corporate responders could enjoy inclusion in the sustainable investing indexes and benchmarks, and investor products; win high rankings, scores, ratings and other honors bestowed by the third party organizations; and in turn, be recognized by still more third-party organizations for their high scores and rankings.

Questions Often Heard in the Corporate Office: 
How come we are not in the DJSI?
How come “competitor X” is ranked higher than we are?
What should we be doing to improve our scores?
Who are the most important providers to engage with and respond to?

THE MORE TRANSPARENT COMPANY – THE PUBLIC COMPANY ESG PROFILE
Beyond the challenges to responding to the many third party organizations that crank the response and other information into their models and into investor-facing products, there is an ever-widening transparency of the company profile that may be of importance say, to major customers or business partners: for example, the Bloomberg professional services ESG dashboard will put the company’s ESG data and profile in front of more than 300,000 subscribers.   Similarly, the Thomson Reuters’ Eikon dashboards reach 200,000 and more subscribers with the same kinds of information.

We can hear the call from the corporate offices this month — Help!  The spring round of queries is at hand. For example, RobecoSAM’s “Corporate Sustainability Assessment” (the CSA) opened for company response last week; companies have only until the end of May to respond.  (We recently conducted a workshop in NYC for first time reporters in collaboration with RobecoSAM’s Robert Dornau and Gretchen Norwood.)

The information provided by companies in responding to the CSA will be an important determinant in RobecoSAM deciding which companies will be in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and featured in the prized Yearbook roster. The information is used in S&P Dow Jones Company’s various products as well.

HOW TO ADDRESS THE CHALLENGES IN RESPONDING
 The good news is that there are efficient, thorough, comprehensive and organized ways to meet the challenges described above that are faced by many managers at publicly-traded and even privately-owned enterprises.

Here at G&A Institute, we call this our matrix approach that results in a more comprehensive “mosaic” (multi-dimensional) corporate ESG profile with significant benefits for the issuer.

It is important to keep in mind: the public company already has a sustainability profile shaped by its own publicly-disclosed information, by the dissemination of information by third parties distributing ESG analysis and data sets and by such stakeholders as government agencies, media, NGOs, activists, competitors, and others.

This mosaic corporate profile may be incomplete, inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise have information that is detrimental to the company and its stakeholders that can be corrected with more timely and/or accurate information. The “wrong information” can lead to negative perceptions that can affect corporate reputation and valuation, and perhaps even societal freedom to operate.

THE G&A INSTITUTE APPROACH TO ESG DATA REVIEW
We usually start with an examination of the existing public ESG profile of the corporation.  This is the information typically provided to investors and key stakeholders by a ever-expanding universe of the ESG rankers and raters.  This phase of the work this helps us and the internal team in developing an understanding of how investors and stakeholders may be viewing the company, what issues are most material in their view — and from this analysis we can provide strategic guidance for how the company can work to better position itself to take advantage of any advances in corporate sustainability over the months and years ahead.

The comprehensive sweep of first-round examinations can be for a key set of the most important data providers (around 4-to-6) or more comprehensive and up to 15 or more of the ESG data providers, index managers, asset managers and public information platforms (such as the data on the Bloomberg and on Eikon).

The specific third party service providers to be examined may depend on peer group, geography of operations, the company’s sector and industry classifications (and keep in mind there are variations of these), the nature of products and services, and other factors.

IMPORTANCE OF THE GAP ANALYSIS
Once the key third party organizations are selected for close examination, an internal gap analysis against the information being made available to investors by the third party provider can be determined – and addressed by the internal team.

Key areas of strength, weakness and the peers’ standings will emerge for internal managers to address. Low hanging fruit such as correcting inaccurate data, or improving reporting by better organizing important ESG disclosure data, may make it easy for short-term improvement.  Longer term the results of this type of analysis and engagement will inform strategy setting, and resource allocations to most efficiently and effectively improve the ROI of the Sustainability program.

G&A’s Co-Founder Louis Coppola was recently interviewed at Skytop Strategies ESG4 Summit on the “Value Companies Can Obtain by Engaging with ESG Investor Data Providers.”  You can watch the interview here and email Lou at lcoppola@ga-institute.com if you have questions or would like to discuss the ESG review process.

KEEP IN MIND:
Improving the ratings, rankings, scores etc is a journey, not a sprint.

It’s important here to stress that whether or not a company chooses to answer queries, respond to data provider inquiries or attempts to correct some public information that service providers are sharing with investors, there is a public sustainability profile out there and it is making an impression on investors.

As the flow of this year’s queries reaches corporate managers, it is important to understand who some of the key third party ESG players are — and what their work is about – and how they can impact the corporation.  We provide some recent news updates about leading players below for your information.

FOR YOUR FURTHER INFORMATION: NEWS ABOUT KEY ESG / SUSTAINABILITY DATA PROVIDERS

The Universe of ESG Rankers Serving Institutional Investor Clients Expands…
Source:G&A Institute’s To the Point! Management Briefs (January 2018)
ISS’ Traditional Corporate Governance Focus Expanding to Encompass Environmental & Social QualityScores for Roughly 1,500 Public Companies Coming in January…And Expanding to 5,000 Issuers in Q2…

ISS Unveils New Corporate “E” and “S” QualityScores for 1,500 Companies
Source:G&A Institute’s To the Point! (February 2018)

Oekom Research to Join Institutional Shareholder Services
Source: oekom research news (March 2018)
oekom research, a leader in the provision of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings and data, as well as sustainable investment research, today announced it will join Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”). Reflecting the strength of both brands, oekom research will be renamed ISS-oekom…

Sustainalytics’ New Research Report Offers Insight into ESG Risks Facing 10 Sectors
Source: Sustainalytics (February 15, 2018)
Sustainalytics, a leading global provider of ESG and corporate governance research, ratings and analytics, today released a new thematic research report – “10 for 2018: ESG Risks on the Horizon”.  The report examines critical ESG risks facing 10 sectors, which are classified under four broad themes, including: Water Management / Stakeholder Governance / Consumer Protection / Climate Change..

Morningstar & Sustainalytics Expand Sustainability Collaboration
Source: Sustainalytics (July 2017)
In a continuing and growing commitment to helping investors integrate sustainability considerations into portfolio decisions, Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, and Sustainalytics, a leading global provider of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) research and ratings, today announced that Morningstar has acquired a 40 percent ownership stake in Sustainalytics. The direct investment represents an important milestone in Morningstar’s long-term sustainability strategy and intends to support Sustainalytics’ ability to deliver high-quality, innovative ESG products and services to the global investment community…

Bloomberg ESG Function for Sustainability Investors Adds RobecoSAM Data
Source: Bloomberg (September 2016)
Bloomberg recently expanded its offering of ESG (environmental, social, governance) data by incorporating information from RobecoSAM’s percentile rankings on the Bloomberg Professional service at ESG<GO> —  a Bloomberg Terminal function that provides sustainability investors with data about a company’s environmental, social and governance metrics…

RobecoSAM Publishes “The Sustainability Yearbook 2018”
Source: RobecoSAM (February 2018)
RobecoSAM, the investment specialist that has focused exclusively on Sustainability Investing (SI) for over 22 years, today announced the publication of “The Sustainability Yearbook 2018”.    The Yearbook showcases the sustainability performance of the world’s largest companies and includes the top 15% per industry, which are awarded Gold, Silver or Bronze Class medals. RobecoSAM has analyzed the corporate sustainability performance of the world’s largest listed companies every year since 1999…

Results Announced for 2017 DJSI Review
Source: RobecoSAM (September 7, 2017)
S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI), one of the world’s leading index providers, and RobecoSAM, an investment specialist focused exclusively on Sustainability Investing (SI), today announced the results of the annual Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) review. The three largest additions and deletions…

MSCI:  2018 ESG Trends to Watch
Source: Commentary by Linda Eling-Lee, Global Head of ESG Research, MSCI  (January 2018)
Bigger, faster, more.  Whether due to policy, technological or climatic changes, companies face an onslaught of challenges that are happening sooner and more dramatically than many could have anticipated.  Investors, in turn, are looking for ways to position their portfolios to best navigate the uncertainty. In 2018, these are the major trends that we think will shape how investors approach the risks and opportunities on the horizon. In 2018, investors will…

Has ESG Affected Stock Performance?
Source: Commentary by Guido Giese – ED, Applied Equity Research, MSCI
Are ESG characteristics tied to stock performance? Many researchers have studied the relationship between companies with strong environmental, social and governance (ESG) characteristics and corporate financial performance. A major challenge has been to show that positive correlations — when produced — explain the behavior. As the classic phrase used by statisticians says, “correlation does not imply causation.”Instead of conducting a pure correlation-based analysis, we focused on understanding how ESG characteristics have led to financially significant effects…

CDP:  The Disruptors:  Paul Simpson, the Atypical Activist Who Awoke C-Suites to Climate Risk
Source: Ethical Corporation (November 2017)
The founder of CDP tells Oliver Balch how the organization he started 17 years ago has helped transform corporate and investor attitudes to climate change  The phrase “task force” is hardly one to get the heart racing. Expand it to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, and you’re into catatonic territory. So it’s little wonder that when the TCFD (as insiders call it) issued a suite of recommendations over the summer, it didn’t trouble the headline writers much. Not so Paul Simpson, who met the news with huge excitement…

Our Governments Have Committed to Keeping Global Temperature Rises to Well Below 2-Degrees – What Can Companies and Cities Do…
Source: CDP Campaigns
The Paris Agreement sends a clear signal that the shift to a low-carbon economy is inevitable, and everyone must play their part. To facilitate this transition, CDP and its partners have developed campaigns that seek to highlight and spur meaningful action on tackling climate change from the private sector and sub-national governments…campaign information…. committed to keeping global temperature rises to well…

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Dispatch From London and The Economist Sustainability Summit 2018

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Guest Post By Juliet Russell – Sustainability Reporting Analyst, G&A Institute

The Economist’s third annual Sustainability Summit was convened in London on March 22nd, 2018. I attended as a representative of G&A Institute.

The discussions focused on how to shift from “responsibility to leadership”: how to lead and encourage co-operation on the path to progress.

I was impressed that significant players from a diverse range of sectors attended the conference, including representatives of Government, NGOs, Business and Academia. Panelists ranged from the CEO of Sainsbury’s, to Google’s Lead for Sustainability, to the Chair of the Board of Directors for Greenpeace and to a Deputy Mayor of London.

Each provided their own views and experiences of sustainability leadership and how to really see actions, instead of ‘just talk and promises’.

The key themes from the day centered around the need for collaboration, communication, shared responsibility, disruptive innovation, combatting short-termism and internalizing sustainability into core strategy and business models.

 

One of the most poignant messages for me was the need for understanding the urgency of the issues we are facing today, particularly in relation to climate change – “we are behaving as though the delta is zero and the delta is clearly not zero” (Jay Koh, The Lightsmith Group).

An attendee told a story of new LEED Platinum Certified buildings in Seattle that everyone is of course proud of — but in 30 years these super energy-efficient buildings will be underwater because we’re too busy focusing on small wins and continual growth, failing to act fast enough or understand the urgency when it comes to climate change and sea-level rise.

As quoted from Baroness Bryony Worthington of the Environmental Defense Fund – “…winning slowly with climate change is the same as losing!”

The conference was incredibly insightful, with such a breadth of timely and interesting topics, which highlighted different areas of debate and offered up potential solutions. Four of the panel discussions I feel are particularly worth highlighting:

1)    ‘A TALE OF THREE CITIES’
Discussion led by Mark Watts, Director of C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and featuring three city government representatives: Shirley Rodrigues, Deputy Mayor of London (Environment and Energy); Solly Tshepiso, Mayor of Tshwane, South Africa; and,  Karsten Biering Nielsen, Deputy Director of Technical and Environmental Administration for the City of Copenhagen.

The lack of adequate and strategic government action is failing so far in preventing climate change and also in reaching the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs).

Mayor Solly discussed as example how slow progress on Paris Agreement targets were partly due to the lack of communication from top Government-level down to the city-level in South Africa. City-to-city communication and partnerships were touted as solutions to these kind of problems, as well as being vital in reaching the SDGs.

The C40 Cities Group facilitates this kind of partnership and network through the sharing of best-practice and successful innovation among their 92 affiliated cities around the world.

2)    ‘PIECES OF THE PUZZLE’
Discussion led by Christopher Davis, International Director of Corporate Responsibility and Campaigns from The Body Shop International.

This panel discussion focused around how to “do good and do well,”; Chris suggested that we need to be gearing business to be truly sustainable based on what the planet needs – not the economy or the shareholders – and creating benchmarks against planetary and societal needs.

Essential consideration for creating a sustainable business:  when sustainability is not an add-on function but embedded in the strategy and business model and thus integral to all activities. The Body Shop International management will know that they have been successful in their sustainability mission when sustainability is ingrained in everything the company is doing and they no longer have a need for a separate sustainability team.

3)    ‘CHANGING MINDS’
Discussion led Dr. Simone Schnall from the University of Cambridge and Prerana Issar from the UN World Food Programme.

This discussion revolved around the relevance of ‘nudging’ in changing behaviour (a behavioral economics approach) to push progress in sustainability. Dr. Simone discussed the concept of ‘nudging’ – creating a choice architecture, which is set up so that people are more inclined to go for the ‘beneficial’ option, gently pushing people to do the right thing.

An example of this might be in putting the recycled paper products at eye-level, with the products made from less sustainable materials at a more awkward height to see and reach.

Essentially, using nudging, we bypass the attempt at changing minds but still change the behaviour.

This can help to reduce problems such as ‘moral licensing’, where people feel licensed to do something ‘bad’ if they have just done something morally good (and vice versa). For example, when using energy efficient products, some people then feel they are able to use them more often because they are doing a ‘good’, which actually negates the positive efficiency benefit.

Nudging may be more and more necessary as actions towards sustainability become more urgent, as we can’t generally rely on society to make the best and informed decisions all the time. Though as nudging still relies on choice, is this enough to make us change? In reality, society may need more guidance and regulation and here, there’s a role for stricter governance and policy.

4)    ‘PIECES OF THE PUZZLE’
Discussion led by Marie-Claire Daveu, Chief Sustainability Officer for Kering.

Touching on the themes of innovation, partnerships and collaboration, Marie-Claire discussed a tool that Kering developed and are using: their Environmental Profit and Loss (“E P&L”).

Many people around the world and across sectors acknowledge that over-exploitation and degradation of the environment and our resources are partially due to the fact that these resources, our ‘natural capital’, have not been accounted for in economic decision-making and cost-benefit analyses.

Because of this, we are failing to internalize the negative externalities, which is crucial if we are to properly be accountable and responsible for our actions in society today, thus failing to understand the true environmental consequences of our actions.

Many businesses would fail to acknowledge the environment as a stakeholder unless it explicitly showed up on their profit and loss accounting.

Kering, a first-mover in their field, created and proposed an E P&L accounting tool as a way to do this and it can be applied throughout the entire value chain. This tool allows identification of impact areas and thus increases ability to reduce it.

Kering also provide their E P&L methodology open-source, to encourage other companies to follow and increase their accountability. This hones in on the knowledge-sharing and sharing of best-practice theme.

During the final session of the day, editors from The Economist newspaper came up with their main takeaways, the “four Ps”:

  • Pragmatic – that is, moving from debating who is responsible and asking, ‘is it really happening?’ to understanding that the situation “is what it is” — and we need to just get on with it. For this, collaborations at all levels will be key.
  • Persistent – sustainability needs to be talked about and implemented persistently, in order to become deeply embedded – not something that has the ‘fickleness of fashion’ – being ‘in’ the one day and passé the next. Persistence can help to bring a necessary sense of depth to the issues and challenges we are facing, in order to trigger action.
  • Problem – understanding reality and assessing our achievements: if we add up all of our efforts today, is it anywhere near enough? I’m sure you’ll all agree that the answer is most definitely not. How do we scale up these efforts effectively? We need to be mindful of the scale of the threats the planet and society face – increasing measurement and transparency can help to uncover this.
  • Prioritization – at present, we can’t robustly value different externalities, which is necessary for internalizing them and dealing in the most efficient and effective way. We must remember to be aware that each trade-off has consequences and consider alternative actions.

Coming away from this wonderful conference, it was clear to me that the main takeaway was of the potential of collaboration – within companies, within industries, between industries, and across sectors. This was picked up on in nearly every talk.

We need a whole ‘ecosystem’ featuring collaboration (involving business, NGOs, government, academia and citizens) in order to win with the current challenges we’re facing; to really progress in sustainability and work towards meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The conference was undoubtedly a timely and powerful call for action.

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Feeding 9 Billion People in 2050? Challenging!  – A Leading U.S. CEO in the Food & Agriculture Business Has Important Perspectives to Share

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by Hank Boerner -Chair, G&A Institute

The CEO of one of the nation’s leading food and agriculture companies has important messages for us:  “To move the planet forward, farmers must lead the charge. But they cannot do it alone. Coordinated action on sustainability across the food supply chains is the only way to achieve lasting progress.”  He tells us how and why in his commentary in a Top Story in our Sustainability Highlights newsletter.

Background:  The Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat in the 2017 revision of the World Population Prospects (the 25th version of this report) says: the current world population of 7.6 billion is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100.

More than 80 million people are added to the world’s population each year. One of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) is to end poverty and hunger – how do we achieve this will depend in large measure on the success of growers in the USA and many other lands.

Looking at global agriculture moving towards 2050, there are serious challenges posed; the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 2009 described some of these:  much more food and fiber must be produced; there will be a smaller rural labor force to help do this; there will be increased demand for more feedstocks for a potentially huge bioenergy market; adapting to climate is  necessary; and, ag producers must be more efficient and sustainable.

Demand for cereals, as example, could almost double from today’s production (for animal feed and human food). Almost all of the land expansion for ag could be in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

The CEO of Land O’Lakes, Chris Policinski writing in Agri-Pulse explains that while the discussion about climate change and other challenges seems to be focused on developments being a generation away, American farmers are dealing right now with such things as harsh drought, severe weather and more pests…the challenges to the food supply are happening right now.

And it is time to start talking about sustainability differently…to include (for example) the reality of what farmers face, acre-by-acre/field-by-field. And then, “farm-to-fork” issues.

Bringing together big-picture, company-level sustainability commitments and acre-by-acre conservation efforts makes both more effective. The great example used by the CEO is Wal-Mart’s Project Gigaton, which aims to remove one billion metric tons of GhGs from the company’s supply chain by 2030.  (Land O’Lakes was one of the first supply partners to sign on.)

There’s much more for you in the Land O’Lakes CEO’s message in one of our Top Stories this week.  There are related items “up top” for you – this week we have ag and food in focus in the Highlights.

Note:  Land O’Lakes, Inc. is a member-owned cooperative agribusiness and food production company based in Minnesota, with $13.7 billion revenues in 2017. The cooperative is almost 100 years in operation and ranks #215 on the Fortune 500® roster.

Top Stories – Ag & Food In Focus

Opinion: To Move Our Planet Forward, Food and Agriculture Must Think about Sustainability Differently
(Friday – April 06, 2018) Source: Agri-Pulse – In many ways, the sustainability story of the American farmer mirrors that of every other American. Farmers genuinely care about doing their part to protect our planet, for all the same reasons as anyone else. They want to leave…

Smallholder farmers are key to making the palm oil industry sustainable
(Monday – April 02, 2018) Source: Eco-Business – Smallholder farmers play an increasingly prominent role in Indonesia’s growing palm oil industry and could be the vanguard of sustainability, say WRI researchers.

A few surprising industries affecting the concept of sustainability in a positive way
(Tuesday – April 03, 2018) Source: Augusta Free Press – In the last ten years, sustainability has become a very important element in the business processes in many industries. For instance, all-natural and organic have become trendy terms in the food industry. Companies which are part…

Opinion: To Move Our Planet Forward, Food and Agriculture Must Think about Sustainability Differently
(Friday – April 06, 2018) Source: Agri-Pulse – In many ways, the sustainability story of the American farmer mirrors that of every other American. Farmers genuinely care about doing their part to protect our planet, for all the same reasons as anyone else. They want to leave…

Don’t Believe In Global Warming? Just Ask A Tuscan Winemaker
(Wednesday – April 04, 2018) Source: Forbes – “Have you seen the effects of climate change and global warming in your region?”

Hershey is investing in more sustainable cocoa for its chocolate treats
(Wednesday – April 04, 2018) Source: LA Times

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The DJSI Corporate Sustainability Assessment Will Soon Be “Open” for US Companies to Begin Their Response Effort – a Workshop for Corporate Staff is Scheduled for April 6th in New York City, Presented by G&A Institute in collaboration with RobecoSAM

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The Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes are some of the most important and widely-used benchmarks for global investors – the suppliers of capital to the corporate sector.  The “DJSI” benchmarks include the well-known “World” and “North America” indexes.

The DJSI are managed by RobecoSAM which described them as a family of best-in-class indices (launched in 1999) that evaluate the sustainability performance of thousands of publicly-traded companies. The indices track the stock performance of the world’s leading companies across 60 industries in terms of economic, environmental and social criteria.

RobecoSAM is a strategic partner of the S&P Dow Jones Indices and the RobecoSAM “Smart ESG Methodology” is used to generate ESG factor scores to construct a family of indices; the methodology is used for example in constructing the S&P ESG Factor Weighted Index family.

RobecoSAM has been driving innovation of the fields of ESG investing…the indices are built on the strength of rigorous internal analytics and research.  An important input to the process is the annual Corporate Sustainability Assessment (the “CSA”) that RobecoSAM explains in this way:

“The quality of a company’s strategy and management and its performance in dealing with opportunities and risks deriving from economic, environmental and social development can be quantified and used to identify and select leading companies for investment purposes. For this reason, RobecoSAM developed the CSA to help identify those companies that are best equipped to recognize and respond to emerging opportunities and risks resulting from global sustainability trends.”

Very soon, the CSA questionnaire will be landing in the offices of leading US companies for internal managements to complete and return to RobecoSAM as the process for adjusting the family of funds is underway (the results will be known in early fall).  One day after the Skytop Strategies “ESG Summit 4” conference, G&A Institute in collaboration with RobecoSAM is presenting a workshop to help American corporate managements in the response process in New York City on April 6th.

Special Note
Lindsey Kauffman, Environmental Lead at Owens Corning will be at the workshop and will share her insight on leading the CSA/DJSI response for her company. Owens Corning is the Industry Leader in overall score/ranking as well as the Industry Leader in all three dimensions.

Skytop’s CEO Chris Skroupa interviewed RobecoSAM’s Robert Dornau and G&A’s Louis Coppola on the workshop and the importance of the DJSI CSA questionnaire to corporate managements.  There’s lots of important details for you in the Top Story this week from the Forbesinterviews.

If you’d like to learn more about G&A’s advisory services for responding to the RobecoSAM CSA please contact Louis Coppola at lcoppola@ga-institute.com.

Top Story

The Corporate Sustainability Assessment; Important ESG Events In Early April
(Thursday – March 29, 2018) Source: Forbes – interviews by Christopher P. Skroupa – The RobecoSAM Corporate  Sustainability Assessment is about to hit the desks in many publicly traded companies. Are executives aware and what are they doing to prepare?  The CSA is a “living document” – what were they key changes in 2018?

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G&A Institute Research Results: 85% of the S&P 500® Index Companies Published Sustainability / Responsibility / CR / Citizenship Reports in 2017

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By Hank Boerner – Chair and Chief Strategist, G&A Institute

One of the world’s most important benchmarks for equity investors is the S&P 500 Index®, a proprietary market-value weighted “basket” of the top stocks that represent about 80% of the U.S. equity markets according to the index owner, S&P Dow Jones Indices/McGraw Hill Financial.

Market Clout:  There are about US$8 trillion in Assets Under Management benchmarked to the index  – companies included in the index have a market-cap of US$6 billion or more (ticker:SPX).

More than six years ago the G&A Institute team decided to focus on the companies in the index to determine their level of (or lack of) ESG / Sustainability / CR / Citizenship disclosure and reporting.

Our first look-see was for year 2011 corporate reporting activities and after scouring the known sources  — each of the corporate websites, IR reports, printed reports, search engines results, connecting with companies and more —  we found just about 20% or about 100 of the large-cap index 500 companies were doing “something” along the lines of what we can describe today as structured reporting.  There were numerous brochure-type publications that did not qualify as a structured report of value to investors and stakeholders.

The GRI Was a Favored Framework – Then and Now
A good number of the early reporting companies were following the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework for reporting guidance (that was for G3 and G3.1 at the time), and some perhaps had some other form of reporting (such as publishing key ESG performance indicators on their website or in print format for stakeholders); GRI’s G4 was later embraced by the 500.  And now we move on to the GRI Standards, which we are tracking for 2018 reporting by the 500.

This initial research effort was a good bit of work for our analyst team because many of the companies simply did not announce or publicize the availability of their sustainability et al report. (Some still do not announce, even in 2017 and 2018!)

The response to our first survey (we announced the results in spring 2012) was very encouraging and other organizations began to refer to and to help publicize the results for stakeholders.

We were pleased that among the organizations recognizing the importance of the work was the GRI; we were invited to be the data partner for the United States, and then the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.  That comprehensive work continues and is complementary to the examination of the 500.

The 2011 Research Effort – Looking Back, The Tipping Point for Sustainability Reporting

Looking back, we can see that the research results were early indications of what was going on in the corporate and investment communities, as more asset owners and managers were adopting ESG / sustainability approaches, investment policies, engagement programs — and urging more public company managements to get going on expanded disclosure beyond the usual mandated financials (the “tangibles” of that day).

Turns out that we were at an important tipping point in corporate disclosure.

Investor expectations were important considerations for C-suite and board, and there was peer pressure as well within industries and sectors, as the big bold names in Corporate America looked left and right and saw other firms moving ahead with their enhanced disclosure practices.

And there was pressure from the purchasing side – key customers were asking their corporate supply chain partners for information about their ESG policies and practices, and for reports on same.  There was an exponential effect; companies within the 500 were, in fact, asking each other for such reports on their progress!

We created a number of unique resources and tools to help guide the annual research effort.  Seeing the characteristics and best practices of sustainability reporting by America’s largest and for the most part best-known companies we constantly expanded our “Sustainability Big Data” resources and made the decision to closely track S&P 500 companies’ public reporting — and feed the rich resulting data yield into our databases and widely share top-line results (our “Flash Report”).

The following year (2013) we tracked the 500 companies’ year 2012 reporting activities – and found a very encouraging trend that rang a bell with our sustainable investing colleagues:  a bit more than half of the 500 were now publishing sustainability et al reports.  Then in 2013, the numbers increased again to 72%…then 75%…then 81%…and now for 2017, we reached the 85% level.  The dramatic rise is clearly evident in this chart:

Note that there are minor annual adjustments in the composition of the S&P 500 Index by the owners, and we account for this in our research, moving companies in and out of the research effort as needed.

Louis Coppola, EVP of G&A Institute who designs and manages the analysis, notes:  “Entering 2018, just 15% of the S&P 500 declined to publish sustainability reports. The practice of sustainability reporting by the super-majority of the 500 companies is holding steady with minor increases year after year. One of the most powerful driving forces behind the rise in reporting is an increasing demand from all categories of investors for material, relevant, comparable, accurate and actionable ESG disclosure from companies they invest in, or might consider for their portfolio.

“Mainstream investors are constantly searching for larger returns and have come to the conclusion that a company that considers their material Environmental, Social, and Governance opportunities and risks in their long-term strategies will outperform and outcompete those firms that do not. It’s just a matter now of following the money.”

Does embracing corporate sustainability in any way impact negatively on the market performance of these large companies?  Well, we should point out that the annual return for the SPX was 22% through 12-13-18.   You can read more in our Flash Report here.

Thank you to our wonderful analyst team members who over the years have participated in this exhaustive search and databasing effort.   We begin our thank you’s to Dr. Michelle Thompson, D.Env, now a postdoc fellow supporting the U.S. Department of Energy in the Office of Energy Policy Systems Analysis; and her colleague, Natalia Valencia, who is now Senior Research Analyst at LAVCA (Latin American Venture Capital Association).  Their early work was a foundational firming up of the years of research to follow.

Kudos to our G&A Research Team for their significant contributions to this year’s research report:  Team Leader Elizabeth Peterson; analyst-interns Amanda Hoster, Matthew Novak, Yangshengling “UB” Qui, Sara Rossner, Shraddha Sawant, Alan Stautz, Laura Malo Yague, and Qier “Cher” Zue.

We include here a hearty shout out to the outstanding analyst-interns who have made great contributions to these research efforts in each year since the start of the first project back in 2011-2012.  It’s wonderful working with all of these future leaders!

The reports from prior years are posted on the G&A Institute website: https://www.ga-institute.com/research-reports/research-reports-list.html

Check out our Honor Roll there for the full roster of all of the talented analysts who have worked on these reports and numerous other G&A Institute research that we broadly share with you when the results are in.  Their profiles (which we work with our valued colleagues to keep up to date as they move on to great success in their careers) are on the G&A website: https://www.ga-institute.com/about-the-institute/the-honor-roll.html

Footnote:  As we examine 1,500 corporate and institutional reports each year we see a variety of titles applied:  Corporate Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Corporate Responsibility; Corporate Citizenship (one of the older titles still used by GE and other firms); Corporate Stewardship; Environmental Sustainability…and more!

If you would like to have information about G&A Institute research efforts, please connect with us via our website.

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The Media – And Sustainability & CR Thought Leadership, For Both Topic-Focused and Mainstream Media Coverage

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by Hank Boerner – Chair, G&A Institute

The “media” that we choose to get our news, commentary, research results, even crossword puzzles, movie reviews, the latest scientific papers and maybe information about what our friends are up to (such as “social media”) are usually self-selected.  

We tune in to what we want to read or watch or listen to…for information / education / entertainment…and it also helps to define us in many ways.

So here at G&A Institute as we broadly monitor for content related to both our day-to-day and long-term focus areas (the list of topics and issues is long), when we see these things pop up in “not-the-usual places,” we are cheered.

This weekend, for example, we picked up on the following, which were encouraging in that senior management publications are read beyond the folks involved in sustainable investing and corporate sustainability or ESG issues and topics.

In Focus:   MIT Sloan Management Review

This is the publication of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT Sloan School of Management.  “Share Your Long-Term Thinking” was one feature article. Companies need to be more forthcoming about their strategies for long-term value creation when they communicate with investors — especially about ESG issues, write authors Tim Youmans and Brian Tomlinson.

Their observation is that over the past five years, CEOs have faced mounting pressure to produce short-term profits. CEOs do think about the long-term, have long-term plans (detailed and extensive) and these typically are closely held.  Result: corporate strategy and practice are not captured in investor communications.

They then offer six reasons why long-term plans should be disclose and how to do that.  One of these is to help investors understand ESG issues through the eyes of management — because a majority of investors see ESG factors as financially material and expect sound management of material ESG factors to deliver better performance over the long-term. 

Tim Youmans is engagement director for Hermes Equity Ownership Services and Brian Tomlinson is research director for the Strategic Investor Initiative at CECP.

They conclude for the magazine’s audience (aimed at corporate executives and senior managements in the main): “The long-term plan is a new tool in the regular sequence of periodic corporate-shareholder communications and represents an unprecedented opportunity for leading companies and investor together to drive sustainable value creation and help to clarify the role of the corporation in a sustainable society.”

That is not all for the MIT Sloan Management Review audience in the Spring 2008 issue.

“Why Companies Should Report Financial Risks From Climate Change” is another feature — this from Robert Eccles and Michael Krzus.  They  focused on the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Disclosures [recommendations].

“Investors and the rest of the world is watching to see how companies will respond to the TFCD recommendations” — the ask here is that company managements will expand their disclosure to report on the risks and opportunities inherent in climate change in such documents as the 10-k.

Boston Common Asset Management LLC and ShareAction organized a campaign with institutions representing US$1.5 trillion in AUM participating to pressure financial institutions (especially banks) to implement the recommendations.

Companies should follow the recommendations, authors Eccles and Krzus argue, because this could lead to evolving better strategies to adapt to climate change — and be able to explain these strategic moves to the their investors.

They focus on the oil and gas industry, looking at disclosures in 2016 by 15 of the largest industry firms listed on the NYSE.  A few have made good progress in adhering to the TCFD recommendations (so there is not a “blank slate”); there is work to be done by all of the companies in enhancing their disclosures to meet the four top recommendations (in governance, strategy, risk management and metrics and targets areas).

Their article is an excellent summation of the challenges and opportunities presented for such companies as BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Sinopec, Statoil, Total, and others in oil & gas.

Bob Eccles is a well-known expert in corporate sustainability and sustainable investing and is visiting professor at Said Business School at the University of Oxford. Mike Krzus is an independent consultant and researcher and was a Fellow of G&A Institute.

Wait, there’s more!

The magazine’s columnists had important things to say as well.

Kimberly Whitler and Deborah Henretta penned “Why the Influence of Women on Boards Still Lags,” applauding the rise of the number of women on boards and offering two important criticisms — the growth rate is slowing and boards do that do have female members often limit their influence.

Although there are measurable positive results of female board inclusion — they cite Return on Equity averaging 53% higher in the top quartile than in the bottom — women still are not making more rapid inroads with fewer reaching the most influential board leadership positions, even with more women on boards than 10 years ago.

The authors set out ways for making more progress in board rooms.  And they advise: “For real, lasting change that wins companies the full benefits of gender-diverse decision-making, boards need to look beyond inclusion — and toward influence.”

Kimberly Whitler is assistant professor of business adminstration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business; Deborah Henretta is an independent board director on the boards of Dow Corning, Meritage Homes Corp, NiScource Inc and Staples (she was a Proctor & Gamble executive).

There is much more for executives and board members in the issue, which has the overall theme of: “In Search of Strategic Agility – discover a better way to turn strategy into results.”

The content we outlined here is powerful stuff (our own technical term) to crank into corporate strategy-setting, and savvy execs are doing just that, as we see here at G&A as we pour through the more than 1,500 corporate reports we analyze each year with titles such as Corporate Sustainability, Corporate Responsibility, Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Environmental Sustainability, and more.

And so it is very encouraging when we wander beyond the beaten path of reading the reliable staple of sustainability-oriented and CSR-oriented media to see what the senior management thought leadership media are doing!

We recommend that you read through the Spring 2018 Strategy magazine from MIT Sloan.  Link: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/

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Ceres on Corporate Sustainability: “Turning Point” Research Effort Results

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We can view this as very encouraging news:  Ceres released a report – “Turning Point” — that shows almost two-thirds of 600 companies examined intend to reduce GHG emission; half have water management policies; and just under half of the companies are formally committed to “workers’ rights”. The current research effort is the third assessment of corporate progress against key expectations of the framework, “The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability,” and is a follow up to Ceres’ “Gaining Ground: Corporate Progress” report in 2014.

The report used data from the ESG research organization Vigeo Eiris that examined 600-plus of the largest publicly-traded companies in the USA.

Says the Ceres researchers:  In looking at the 600+ companies for the best examples on sustainability leadership, a key finding is that “sustainability” is now overseen by senior executives in more companies (65% today, vs. 42% in 2014), and high-level corporate officers manage GHG reductions in 98% of the companies surveyed.

That’s the good news.  The “bad news,” as provided with examples by Brian Collett in our Top Story (commentary from TriplePundit), is that while corporate responders said they were committed to reducing GHG emissions (64% said “yes”), only 36% set clear goals.

The Ceres survey results at times sound like the familiar “I have good news for you/and bad news” jokes.  While 69% of companies say they are concerned about their supply chain environmental and societal impacts, only 34% have “the means to take action”.

While about one-third of companies conduct materiality assessments, only 6% can describe the results guiding their planning and decision-making. On “water control,” more than half of companies are “committed,” but only 15% have priority targets focused on high risk.

Author Collett tells readers that using data from Vigeo Eiris the good news is that a select number of leading brand marketers in the USA are indeed meeting Ceres’ research recommendations to the corporate sector (“intensify your sustainability actions”).

These companies include Citi, Coca-Cola, CVS Health, Gap, General Mills, Intel, Kellogg, Nike, and PepsiCo.  The CSOs at General Mills and Citi Group add their perspectives to the TriplePundit piece.

Commenting on the research effort, Betty T. Yee (Controller of the State of California) noted:  Turning Point is a critical tool for smart business decisions, providing investors and shareholders with helpful insights to better understand key sustainability trends and leading industry practices.”

Watch next week for G&A Institute’s update on in our annual Flash Report on the CSR/Sustainability reporting trends of the S&P 500® Index companies.

To read the Ceres’ “Turning Point” report:  https://www.ceres.org/resources/roadmap-for-sustainability

To learn more about the framework — Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability:  https://www.ceres.org/ceres-roadmap

This Week’s Top Story

600 Companies, More Senior Executives Commit to Sustainability Policies
(Monday – March 05, 2018) Source: Triple Pundit – Record numbers of the largest and most influential companies in the US have been found in new research to be committing themselves to ambitious sustainability policies.

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Building Success Into The Firm’s Sustainability Efforts – By Making Sustainability Everyone’s Responsibility

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Lately, we’ve been participating in conferences where CEOs and other senior managers have been on the lectern describing their companies’ sustainability journeys – the why, how, challenges and positive outcomes.
Most presenters are the leaders in brand marketing who know that the stakes are higher now, in terms of both investor and customer expectations.  They know that the customer-facing company that wants competitive market positioning will demonstrate greater corporate responsibility and strive to be more sustainable.

One of the common threads that we hear in these presentations is the key role that employees play in making corporate “sustainability” or “responsibility” or “citizenship” programs more successful.  There are typically key management metrics applied, ranging from the simple-to-the-sophisticated.  Employee volunteer hours.  Return on these efforts(equivalent to dollar amounts donated in some cases).  Employee retention and customer loyalty rates. Investor response.

And for a few enterprises, the strategic approach of alignment of effort and incentive – building recognition and rewarding of the employee contributions to the positive outcomes (small today but appears to be a growing practice for savvy leaders).

Encouraging and organizing employee volunteering is often among the core activities when a company sets out on the sustainability journey – it’s a great internal morale builder and positive way to put the brand forward doing something that benefits society.

CB Bhattacharya writing in the Harvard Business Review shares his experiences gained in interviews with CEOs and C-suite execs, middle managers and “shop floor” workers in 25-plus companies to understand “why most companies fail to embed sustainability in their business models and what drives success among the handful that do.”

Hint:  it is about creating and promoting “ownership” – successful companies create conditions for stakeholders to “own” sustainability. 

Bhattacharya is H.J. Zoffer Chair of Sustainability and Ethics as the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business. He’s developed a three-phase model to help companies understand how to move beyond rhetoric and take ownership of sustainability (walking-the-talk).These are incubation, launching and entrenching.  These steps help to build a feeling of ownership (among employees) and “de-mystify” the internal stakeholders’ contributions to the overall corporate effort.

He offers examples citing such firms as BASF and its “Sustainability Solution Steering”; ING and the “sustainable transitions” and the application in real estate and clean technology; Old Mutual and workshops to show how employees are changing lives through their day jobs.

The advice shared from Unilever is not to create a “little department” for sustainability but to mainstream the efforts into all countries, brands, and divisions.  Example: the Unilever R&D and marketing departments work to create and promote products that serve business and society.

Ringing in our ears as we write this:  BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s recent “CEO-to-CEO” letter calling on corporate leaders in which his company invests to ensure that the company fulfills a “social purpose!”  Almost every one of the corporate honchos we’ve heard embeds the phrase in their story-telling now.  That’s good news, we would say.

There’s very helpful advice for corporate leaders in the HBR article that is our Top Story, whether the enterprise is starting out on the journey, cautiously advancing one foot at a time, or well along in the journey and looking to stay way ahead of its peers.  As CB Bhattacharya (who is writing a book on the subject) observes:  “Establishing [employee] ownership prevents the feeling that that sustainability is someone else’s problem to manage.”

This Week’s Top Story

How to Make Sustainability Every Employee’s Responsibility 
(Monday – February 26, 2018) Source: Harvard Business Review – Do you believe that sustainability is important for your company, but that it’s “someone else’s problem”? You aren’t alone: While most organizations talk the talk of sustainability — doing things such as integrating environmental…

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“Does the RobecoSAM CSA Deliver Quantifiable Business Returns?” – Find out April 6th in NYC at DJSI How INSIGHTS Inspire Action

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As the opening of RobecoSAM’s Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) draws nearer we wanted to remind you about our upcoming workshop on April 6th at Baruch College/CUNY in New York City. The workshop will be a very intimate discussion with 30 or fewer people with an opportunity to engage with representatives from RobecoSAM, G&A Institute, and your peers.

Participants will also have access to RobecoSAM’s benchmarking & leading practices database for the day. (Access to these databases normally cost 4’990 EUR and 2’500 EUR respectively.)

Click Here to Register & Find Out More Details! 

We’d also like to share with you a collection of video interviews which outline the value of the RobecoSAM CSA for leading companies. These topics and more will be discussed at our workshop.

RobecoSAM interviewed a number of leading companies that are long time CSA participants. Please enjoy… and let us know if you have any questions about the CSA or the upcoming event.

Does the CSA deliver quantifiable business returns?
The CSA results are often used by companies to refine their sustainability strategy, add credibility to sustainability focused RfPs, attract investors, and to motivate employees and increase engagement. Learn first-hand about all the benefits these companies realize. Watch this 2min video with statements from Siemens, AstraZeneca, Deutsche Telekom, Samsung, ABN Amro, and Shinhan Financial Group.

How do you use the results of RobecoSAM’s CSA?
Companies that lead in sustainability use the CSA results in their communication with investors and B2B clients and to motivate employees to name just a few examples. To learn more, watch this 2min video with statements from Deutsche Telekom, AstraZeneca, Samsung, Siemens, ABN Amro, and Shinhan Financial Group.

Please join us on April 6th at Baruch College in NYC!
Click Here to For More Details & To Register! 
We look forward to seeing you there!

Where does RobecoSAM’s CSA fit your overall reporting approach? 
The discussions and outcomes that develop internally at Sustainability leaders from the process of completing the CSA are used as key input for their sustainability reporting strategy. Hear about it from the leaders in this 2min video with statements from AstraZeneca, Deutsche Telekom, Samsung, Siemens, ABN Amro, and Shinhan Financial Group.

Advice for peers: what are the pitfalls first time participants should avoid? 
Watch this short video to learn about the benefits companies realize from their CSA participation and receive expert advice on how to best manage the CSA questionnaire process. Experts from ABN Amro, AstraZeneca, Deutsche Telekom, Samsung, Siemens, and Shinhan Financial Group.

“It’s not rocket science” – Advice for 1st time CSA participants
RobecoSAM asked a number of long time participants in our Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) what kind of advice they have for first time participants. Watch this 4min video to learn first hand from Axa Group, Philips, Grupo Nutresa, Cementos Argos and UPM Kymene.

Please join us on April 6th at Baruch College in NYC!
Click Here to For More Details & To Register! 
We look forward to seeing you there!

FOR QUESTIONS, contact Louis D. Coppola, Executive Vice President & Co-Founder, Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. at Tel 646.430.8230 ext 14 or email lcoppola@ga-institute.com.

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Supply Chain Responsibility – A Signal of Excellence in Corporate Accountability? Stakeholders Are Increasingly Thinking That Way…in the “New World Order”

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Back in 1991, the tense “Cold War” environment of the post-WWII era was coming to an end.  President George H.W. Bush, a veteran fighter pilot in WWII and “Cold War Warrior,” addressed the U.S. Congress (January 19th) to deliver his State of the Union address.

“We stand at a defining hour,” he declared. “What is at stake is more than one small country (referring to Iraq at that moment); it is a big idea – a New World Order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind…peace, security, freedom, and the rule of law. Such is a world worthy of our struggle and worthy of our children’s future.”

While the comments included references to the winding down of the Cold War and the enduring division of nations into two competing blocs (the USA and USSR) and standing-by status of “the Third World” of developing nations, the term “New World Order” captured the imagination and has endured.  But what does it mean?

Among other things, it means a freer flow of goods, capital and people among the nations of the world, relatively more peaceful conditions and more freedom to create more opportunity in every corner of the globe.  And that meant the s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g of the corporate procurement and sourcing efforts and the building of a much-more complex and far-flung supply chain for many developed society companies.

And as that supply chain became a more universal practice and more deeply embedded into the vital operations of the corporate sector, indeed many aspects of the “New World Order” became apparent.  And questions began to arise: What are the conditions of the workers within your global supply chain?  What are the environmental protections being put in place as the local suppliers in less-developed nations strive to produce more for the major customers in developed societies? What is your firm’s contributions to the well-being of the local community at which you source your goods?

Many company managements do struggle with the answers to these questions – and investors and stakeholders continue to raise questions about the nature of, the operation of, conditions within, the supply chain of many companies in their portfolios.

We have brought you numerous reports from around the world on the subject of global supply chains in these weekly newsletters. This week’s Top Story is about survey results from DNV GL; the company conducted a survey of professionals at global companies across Europe, the Americas and Asia – out of 1400 responses, 60 companies emerged as supply chain “sustainability leaders” based on attributes defined by DNV GL.  You’ll want to read this.

The New World Order has come to define many business and investing activities over the 25-plus years since President Bush delivered his remarks.  The USA has signed on to the WTO treaty, which was a departure from the traditional GATT talks encouraged by the U.S. after WW II.

The fundamentals of manufacturing have significantly been re-ordered over these years – with apparel and footwear and accessories as examples virtually disappearing from assembly lines in North America.  Yes, we are living in the New World Order – ask a veteran purchasing manager or sourcing manager about that if you can – we are miles beyond the operating conditions of 1991.

With rising purchaser expectations of greater accountability on the part of companies they do business with, supply chain responsibilities inch closer and closer to the top of priorities. Tell us, show us, the mantra of the stakeholders seems to be!

This Week’s Top Story

Supply chain management survey indicates greater pressure on companies to demonstrate sustainability
(Thursday – February 22, 2018) Source: Modern Material Handling – A new international survey by DNV GL, a global quality assurance and risk management company, reveals an emerging gap between beginners and leaders when it comes to managing sustainable supply chains

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