Category Archives: ESG

U.S. Large Cap ESG Progress – Barron’s Magazine Reports the Good News

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March 8, 2023 – by Hank Boerner – Chair and Chief Strategist, G&A Institute

Literally hundreds of thousands of loyal readers closely follow the content of Barron’s magazine, sister publication to The Wall Street Journal — because Barron’s is an important investor-focused publication reaching almost a half-million subscribers each week with keen interest in content about the capital markets.

Six years ago, Barron’s began to focus more intently on ESG and sustainable investment topics.  That was an important signal of the importance of ESG information to capital markets players and a wide range of investors. 

Each year since Barron’s has analyzed the largest U.S. publicly-traded companies and publishes its “100 Most Sustainable U.S. Companies” ranking.

The rankings are done in collaboration with Calvert Research and Management, a major asset manager and mutual fund advisory company that has been focused on sustainable investing for many years.

This year’s results are out; the methodology to rank the 100 most sustainable companies includes:

• Calvert starts with the largest 1,000 publicly-traded U.S. companies by market cap.

• Calvert researchers apply more than 230 ESG performance indicators for these companies using data from seven rating companies, including MSCI, ISS, and Sustainalytics, along with other data and Calvert’s internal research.

• The data is organized into 28 key topics sorted into five categories based on major stakeholder constituencies (Shareholders, Employees, Customers, Community, the Planet). For example, key topics for shareholders included board structure and exec compensation, while key topics for the planet included GHG emissions and water stress.

• Calvert assigned a score of zero to 100 in each category based on company performance and then created a weighted average based on how financially material the category was for that company’s industry. Poor performance by a company in any of the key categories that was financially material would be automatically disqualifying.

The featured story is edited by Lauren Foster, who writes: “ESG may sound like a meaningless acronym. To some politicians, it’s nothing less than a threat to American capitalism, and it needs to be reined in.”

The story goes on to punch holes in the Republican-led arguments that ESG is a threat to capitalism, or to state employee pension funds, or to investing in general.

Barron’s notes for its investment readers that 63 of the 100 ranked companies outperformed the S&P 500 Index® last year and the list overall outperformed the broad index, delivering a negative 9.5% return in 2022 vs a negative 18.1% for the entire S&P 500 Index.

This is an important feature story you will want to read and share with colleagues. The G&A team is pleased and proud to say that a number of our valued clients appeared on the 2022 list, including some for the first time. Onward, sustainable companies, and upward ESG investing!


Top Story:

• https://www.barrons.com/articles/most-sustainable-esg-us-companies-1b5f70fd?mod=Searchresults

Finding a Way Forward So ESG Advocates and Critics Can Get On the Same Page

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March 3, 2023

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

Woke! Woke!  And Anti-Woke!  The word is now an important part of the political and cultural conversation in such states as Florida, where it is becoming a vigorous political campaign cry.  Woke comes to Florida to die, the present governor eagerly proclaims. 

Where did the expression “woke” come from? Wikipedia offers us this explanation: “Woke is an adjective from African-American Vernacular English meaning [being] alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.”

Think about the impact of the tragedies of the George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Trye Nichols deaths and the founding of Black Lives Matter as importance pieces of the “alerts” to the Black communities across America. But woke moved to the mainstream as well. 

As the use of the term spread to a broader range of topic areas, we could say that more of the population is being “woke” — what this really is about is being “awakened” and “alert” to changes in certain areas of interest and importance in our business and personal lives.

Such as (one example) as the importance of ESG issues to asset managers and corporate leadership.  

Now, unbelievably, embrace of ESG in Corporate America and the financial markets is a “woke” thing  – something to be feared, says the governor of the Sunshine State.

The increasing awareness of the importance of ESG material issues accounts for the shift in focus beyond just the reported financial results by fiduciaries to consider an ever-widening range of corporate governance, environmental and societal issues. (Of course now including diversity, inclusion, equitable treatment for all stakeholders.)

Consideration of ESG is now a fundamental part of asset management and fiduciary duties in the U.S. and in Europe.  But — there is growing opposition to the success of sustainable investors (like asset managers embracing ESG.)  Really. 

We’ve been sharing news and perspectives about ESG and woke and the attacks by certain Red states attacks on both ESG and woke; these are strawmen for public sector leaders who now target and punish those asset managers adopting ESG analysis and methodologies in their management of clients’ assets.  

The issue now is front and center in the halls of Congress as well. 

The encouraging news there is that state pension fund managers are pushing back, recognizing that in their states ignoring ESG issues will cost their fund (with lower returns on investment). 

In the Harvard Business Review, Two authors put many of the issues in perspective for us as they offer possible solutions to rescue ESG from the Culture Wars. They are well versed in the many aspects of ESG, sustainable investing, and corporate sustainability.

One is former Harvard B-school professor Robert Eccles (now visiting professor of management practice at Said Business School, and a lifelong Democrat) and, Daniel Crowley, a long-time GOP leader who served as general counsel to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and who now leads the global financial services practice as K&L Gates LLP.

Bob Eccles is a founder of the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board (SASB); Daniel Crowley lead government relations efforts at the Nasdaq Stock Exchange and National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). They speak about ESG from a deep and varied background in financial, business, research, and public policy.

A few highlights of their shared perspectives in the HBR piece:

• The planned congressional hearings on ESG presents opportunity to put facts on the record and begin the process of working toward a bipartisan consensus to take the “political passion” out of ESG discussions. (The 2024 president and congressional contests are just getting underway.)

• The key will be to bring ESG definitions back to an original intention, “as a means for helping companies identify and communicate to investors the material, long-term risks they face from ESG-related issues”.

• Climate change is such a risk; fossil fuel companies for whom future revenues would be greatly reduced if governments start to tax carbon.

• For capital markets to properly allocate capital, investors need companies to disclose material investment risks. ESG, they write, is simply about identifying material risk factors that matter.

• The coming House hearings on ESG could be political theater — or a learning opportunity to clarify what ESG is/isn’t.

This HBR feature article is compelling reading for those on both sides of the ESG equation, for both ESG advocates and critics. Framing the hearings as explorations of not about being “woke” but on the importance of materiality is the way forward, the authors posit.

We urge your reading and sharing of Bob Eccles’ and Daniel Crowley’s enlightening perspectives.

It is unfortunate that the U.S. Culture Wars now drag anti-ESG views into the vital conversations and political theater about addressing the climate change crisis.

The team at G&A Institute will continue to monitor and share top-line results with you as these vital conversations (and shouting matches) focus on the importance of ESG. 


The Harvard Business Review article for your reading – tune in to the “hopes” and solutions of the authors:

Rescuing ESG from the Culture Wars (Harvard Business Review)

https://hbr.org/2023/02/rescuing-esg-from-the-culture-wars


Here’s the Details on USA Corporate ESG Reporting Trends

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December 1, 2022

by Hank Boerner – Chair and Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

In the early issues of our company’s newsletter (G&A Institute’s Sustainability Updates) more than a decade back, we had a feature that seems quaint today: we published the list of U.S. corporate ESG reports that we had found in manual searching for that issue.

The reports we “captured” required considerable time and effort to find.

You see, most companies would publish their “corporate social responsibility”, “corporate environmental”, and (a few) “sustainability” reports with no fanfare, no announcement, no call to readers to come look at the report.

And so we had to look here, there and everywhere to find a new corporate report to share with our newsletter readers.

The percentage of reports published compared to the total universe of large caps that could have published reports was tiny – very tiny, indeed.

But we noticed in our constant monitoring that the number of such reports published by U.S. headquartered companies while small was steadily increasing.

We wondered then, what was happening in the universe of S&P 500 Index© firms, representing a huge part of the available equity investments on stock exchanges.  The S&P benchmark represented more than 80 percent of large-cap publicly=traded companies (to invite in). 

In those early days of what is now ESG reporting the European peers of U.S. companies published many more reports – so when a US company published a report, that was news we wanted to share!

We began a thorough examination of U.S. corporate ESG disclosure, looking at calendar year 2010 reporting to share in our first trends reports that we published in 2011. We found that just under 20% of U.S. firms included in the S&P 500 Index had published a report. That was encouraging, right?  A good sign for the future!

The following year (for our trends report of 2012, for 2011 corporate reporting) we were quite surprised to find that now more than half of the S&P 500 firms were publishing reports. And that volume rapidly increased to almost three-quarters of the firms by the next trends report (in 2013 for 2012 reporting).

And soon enough we were at nine-out-ten of the index companies were publishing ESG reports (far too many to list in the newsletter!).

Many readers of the annual trends report began to regularly ask us about the reporting activities of the next batch of publicly-traded companies large caps – those companies included in the Russell 1000 Index®.

We expanded the S&P 500 research four years ago to all of the R-1000 companies. Over the years we’ve seen U.S. corporate ESG/sustainability reporting become more sophisticated, more in-depth, and the content more valuable to stakeholders seeking ESG data sets and other information.

Today we devote many months of the year to in-depth research and analysis on corporate ESG reporting for these trends reports. This has become our signature research effort.

A talented team of G&A team members work with a highly-qualified team of analyst-interns (most of them participating in Master’s degree studies in sustainability topics) who scour corporate reports for details that we share in the trends report. You’ll see their names and backgrounds in the trends report.

From the beginning of this exercise in 2010 we have invited the best-of-the best of advanced sustainability academicians to be part of the journey. (We started with two outstanding analyst-interns that year for the first trends report – Dr. Michelle Thompson and Natalia Valencia).

Over the following years we’ve had an outstanding team each year to develop the contents of the trend report – and they’ve gone on from G&A internships to great careers in various sectors, we’re proud to say.

We always made the trends report available to all (at no cost) in the belief that the more information and intelligence on corporate ESG reporting that is available the more that stakeholders will use the information — and pass on their expectations to companies to provide more details in their periodic ESG disclosures.

That has worked, we’re told by a number of experts, to help encourage still more ESG disclosures by U.S. companies and to encourage asset owners and managers to look closely at the data and narratives disclosed by publicly-traded enterprises.

Over time, the content examined and data/narrative captured has become a powerful resource for the G&A team as they assist publicly-traded and privately managed firms with their ESG disclosure and reporting.

We have more to say about the trends report project in the 2022 edition.for 2021 reporting).  Here’s the link to the Trends report if you have not read it yet: https://www.ga-institute.com/research/ga-research-directory/sustainability-reporting-trends/2022-sustainability-reporting-in-focus.html

Our Honor Roll of present and past analyst-interns is here: https://www.ga-institute.com/about/careers/internship-honor-roll.html

Sustainability is a Talent Issue

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Guest Comments from Katheryn Brekken, Ph.D., Senior Research Analyst, Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp)

G&A Institute is a partner of i4cp, a global human capital research firm. We are pleased to share a post from Dr. Katheryn Brekken explaining the findings of a recent study by i4cp on the impact of human resources on sustainability.

Leaders wanting to make progress on their organization’s sustainability goals should look to human resources.

Research by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), a global human capital research firm, found that organizations that make progress on their sustainability commitments are far more likely to have HR leaders who are highly involved in designing the strategy for social goals and programs and governance and environmental ones as well.

The study included survey data representing 191 business and HR leaders from 20 countries and explored HR’s role in organizations’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programs.

Among those reporting that their organizations are making progress on ESG goals, 79% said HR is highly involved in designing strategy for social goals and programs, 29% reported HR is highly involved in governance goals and programs, and 18% said HR is highly involved in environmental goals and programs.

The data found that organizations with solid market performance were far more likely to have a cross-functional team or group overseeing ESG and HR. Most respondents who reported that their organizations have been making major progress on their ESG commitments in the past two years have cross-functional teams that include HR, sustainability officers, legal counsel, and public or corporate affairs. For example, at Citi, the head of HR is part of an executive leadership team that drives the company’s ESG strategy.

“Given the labor market, and being the global bank that we are, it’s really important for us to think about human capital interests as part of our ESG strategy,” said Sam Santos, Citi’s Head of Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

Having a diverse and inclusive global workforce is an important goal for Citi, so much so that they met their three-year aspirational representation goals and recently announced new ones.

And ESG goals are intertwined throughout other HR functions. For example, diversity, equity, and inclusion, including representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities at the managing director level, are part of senior executive performance management scorecards. This ensures that leaders are held accountable for making efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion, and other related ESG goals.

i4cp’s research identified specific workforce strategies that were significantly more likely to be adopted by organizations reporting making major progress on their ESG goals. These involve:

  • Including information about ESG commitments in onboarding materials
  • Providing compensation programs that incentivize progress on ESG commitments
  • Offering trainings to reduce waste and /or save energy and resources
  • Providing training to employees about policies such as anti-corruption or anti-harassment
  • Providing training to employees to reduce bias and microaggressions
  • Supporting employee resource groups/business resource groups) related to ESG
  • Offering elective discounts or benefits that promote certain ESG-supporting behaviors, such as subsidies to purchase electric cars, or paid leave to volunteer in the community
  • Organizing volunteer events that support ESG goals
  • Providing leadership development that promotes behaviors aligned to ESG goals

Among these strategies, involvement on the part of the learning and development team is clearly critical to help organizations make progress on their sustainability commitments.

An example of this from Citi is its Owning My Success (OMS) program, which provides mentoring and development to Black colleagues. The program provides participants with exposure to Citi’s senior leadership and supports professional and personal development. Over the course of several months, participants join group coaching circles, led by an external executive coach and a senior leader at Citi. Managers also take part in group coach­ing to better understand the experience of Black colleagues in the workplace. More than 700 Black leaders have participated in OMS since the program began in 2018, and the company recently promoted one of the largest and most diverse managing director classes in recent history.

“We have this wide range of stakeholders across the organization involved in our ESG efforts and HR is one of them. We engage our employees as part of this. We use the voice of our employees from surveys and our affinity networks are groups that are heavily involved as well. If you think about social change and how we can improve the environment, it’s through our own employees,” Santos said. “They further these initiatives.”

Click here to read i4cp’s full research paper.

ESG from a Corporate Vantage Point – Anniversary Update

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Important Perspectives shared by Pamela Styles, Fellow G&A Institute

Foreword by Hank Boerner, Chairman & Chief Strategist, G&A Institute
One year ago, the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) IRUpdate quarterly magazine published its Winter 2021 edition that was dedicated to ESG topics and issues — which G&A Institute shared with publishers’ permission.  G&A’s executive leaders and IR professional and G&A Fellow Pam Styles each contributed an article to the edition to provide three different perspectives and vantage points.

It is with great pride that we congratulate our IR Fellow, Pam Styles, for being named Gold Winner of the DeWitt C. Morrill Editorial Excellence Awards for her article in that magazine, titled: “A Practical Approach to ESG From a Corporate Vantage Point”.

She was be honored by NIRI and presented the award in-person at the NIRI Annual Conference which held June 5-7 in Boston, MA.

G&A Institute coverage of many rapid changes across ESG-related issues bridges two important spheres of influence in our modern economy – the corporate sector and capital markets.  

To that end, Pam has taken time to summarize and briefly update three topics touched on in her original article – SEC, ESG Raters and Voluntary Frameworks – to highlight some major announcements and trends in the last year that should be useful to corporate executive and investor relations perspective.  Here is Pam’s April 2022 award-winning commentary:

Anniversary Update
The full title of my original article one year ago, “A Practical Approach to ESG from a Corporate Vantage Point”, started with “A Practical Approach…” and continued with “…to ESG from a Corporate Vantage Point”.

The reason for this was and still is that the ESG landscape has been changing so rapidly as to be humanly impossible for any one person or company to stay on top of without practical focus and strategy of approach.

Much of that article about launching and maintaining a successful company ESG reporting program, including supporting strategies and resources, remains relevant today.  The most important thing is for companies to be organized and deliberate to make sure that, no matter how much or how little ESG-related policies, disclosure or other communications they can provide, it all can be easily found via the company’s website by human stakeholders and AI research tools alike.  This is to make sure that the company is getting as full credit as possible for all it is doing and communicating with regard to ESG matters.

The article goes into far greater specifics and, even one year later, is worth the (re)read.

Three topics warrant brief update to highlight some of the major announcements that have occurred just in the one year since the article was published – as listed in the table below.

Major Announcements in One Year
Roughly Spanning Winter 2021 to Winter 2022
(Partial list only)

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Major ESG Raters and Rankers1 Voluntary Reporting Frameworks1
May 20, 2022 – deadline for comment letters on Pending rule proposal on climate risk and GHG disclosure.  Proposes TCFD-like reporting requirements within Reg S-K and financial metrics within Reg S-X, with phase-in 2023-2026 based on registrant filer status. Additional Highlights. April 24, 2022 – Crowded ESG Ratings Landscape Sows Confusion for Investors, the days of largely unregulated ESG ratings providers may be numbered. January 2023 – GRI “Universal Standards” will go into effect, which will include supply chain. Additional Highlights.
March 9, 2022 – Pending rule proposal on cybersecurity. Summary sheet.  (Data Security and Privacy falls under “S” of ESG) February 2022 – call for ESG ratings regulation in ESG Ratings and ESG Data published by Accenture UK and the International Regulatory Strategy Group (IRSG).  Reason: due to huge variation and significant inconsistencies, lack of transparency, frustration and confusion for reporting companies, conflicts of interest with fee models, and a low correlation for ESG ratings (as low as 0.38) compared to credit ratings (as high as 0.99), all which impact investment decisions. March 24, 2022 – The IFRS Foundation and GRI announce they are taking the latest step toward a more closely aligned set of global ESG reporting frameworks.  Part of global moves toward consolidation.
July 26, 2021 – earlier call by International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) initiate for ESG ratings regulation. GRI and IFRS are just one example of multiple frameworks that have been announcing collaborations and harmonization efforts.  A common reporting standard may not happen for a while.  Additional Highlights.

1 As defined in “The Complexity of ESG Reporting and Emerging Convergence Trends”, by Louis Coppola, EVP & Co-Founder, Governance & Accountability Institute

Rapid Changes
The U.S. has been rapidly catching-up with the UK and EU in terms of ESG public discourse in general.  As simplified in his article “The Surging Volume and Velocity of ESG Investing”, Hank Boerner, Chairman & Chief Strategist of Governance & Accountability Institute, indicated 2020 was the year of Human Capital Management focus and 2021 would be the year of Climate Change/ Climate Crisis focus.

Looking ahead, I predict that 2022 may end up being a year of Practical Stress Testing. Global dislocation (economic, human, energy, security, etc.) brought on by protracted pandemic conditions in China and the Russia-Ukraine military conflict with implications to energy, natural and agricultural resources, are both critically affecting the global supply chain and have opened a lot of eyes as to the speed at which ESG net-global progress may actually be being made.

Certain realities and practicalities seem to have been missed in haste to press ESG initiatives that need to be addressed.  Here’s to hoping honest brokers can be up to the task.

In the meantime, a lot of companies are still in ESG journey catch-up mode, especially in the U.S.  With ESG here to stay, it is important for companies to make as much progress as they can in areas of ESG strategy, execution and disclosure that make sense to address at this time.  But keep an eye on major announcements and build flexibility into your company’s ESG communications and disclosure capabilities – as a lot of changes are yet to come.

About the Author
Pamela Styles is long-time Fellow of G&A Institute and principal of Next Level Investor Relations LLC, a strategic consultancy with dual Investor Relations and ESG / Sustainability specialties.

Role of Green Building Certifications in Telling Your ESG Story

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By Kavya Dhir, G&A Institute Sustainability Analyst

With climate change at the forefront of today’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) discussion, and corporate ESG disclosures in focus, companies are being held more accountable for their overall environmental impact.

These impacts include the carbon footprint of their operations — such as office space, business travel, and packaging of consumer goods.

For office buildings, third-party certifications such as the WELL Building Standard (WELL) managed by the International Well Building Institute (IWBI), and, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) managed through the US Green Building Council (USGBC), have ushered in a new era of sustainability transparency and accountability.

Green building standards have served as a foundation for more than two decades to make buildings become more energy efficient, less polluting, and healthier for their inhabitants. The USGBC was created in 1993 in the boardroom of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), with representatives from over 60 corporations and organizations.

Today, investment firms and property businesses are raising the bar for “green.” This includes increased greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and supply chain management regulations. Further, these organizations and individual assets are being expected to back up their ambitions with real-world performance data.

Green building standards should be promoted by real estate professionals to work to ensure that the advantages are widely recognized and implemented.

What is a Green Building?
According to the World Green Building Council (WGBC), the definition of a green building is: “a building that, in its design, construction or operation, reduces or eliminates negative impacts, and can create positive impacts, on our climate and natural environment.”

Here is a brief overview of the ESG issues that are involved:

Environmental – Energy, water, and material are three essential environmental components that have a significant influence on the natural environment over the lifespan of any construction.

According to the WGBC definition, the ultimate goal is not just to optimize resource use so that harmful impacts are reduced, but also to ensure that the building itself contributes positively to the natural environment.

Examples of positive impacts are if a building use recycled and reusable materials, has a greywater system that collects and uses rainwater, or has solar panels which feed excess energy back to the grid.

The societal pressure to adapt to meet the goals of The Paris Agreement on climate change has grown considerably. There is also pressure on the construction and real estate sectors to contribute significantly. In the future, making a good contribution to climate protection would include adhering to tight requirements including reducing the net primary energy need in the planning and construction of new buildings by 20% as compared to the ‘lowest energy level.’

Social – A building is designed for occupants; therefore, it must consider their health, comfort, and safety. In office buildings, asking building management if they have engaged in any Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) certifications is a simple way to determine whether the facility has inadequate air quality which may trigger headaches, respiratory irritation, nausea, and allergies. Natural lighting has physiological effects that may be measured. The synchronization of the body’s internal clock – known as circadian rhythm, can be aided by exposure to adequate quantities of natural sunshine.

Governance – Facility managers must design metrics to monitor the health of a building in order to demonstrate effective governance in building operations, maintenance, and management. Furthermore, construction companies and operational managers should be obliged to set quantifiable objectives and demonstrate efforts in advancing the industry toward a beneficial influence on the environment to quantify how a building may do better.

To be considered to be really “green,” a building must serve as a link between people and nature. The ESG of buildings described above aren’t designed to oversimplify the industry’s complexity; rather, they’re meant to raise awareness and start dialogues about acceptable reporting standards. Investors are becoming more demanding in terms of accurate, transparent, and timely account of asset-level performance. The future of ESG reporting in real estate development will move far above entity-level disclosures.

About the Author

Kavya Dhir is a G&A Institute Sustainability Analyst.  Her role consists of conducting materiality assessments, gap analysis and benchmarking research. A researcher and a lifelong learner at heart, Kavya is a LEED GA, WELL AP and holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil engineering and a MSc. In Design and Energy Conservation.

She is involved with many organizations, including ASHRAE, U.S Green Building Council, UN Green (R)evolution and ISHRAE.

She is an optimist who looks towards a future in which our built-environment and energy production exist in harmony with us and the natural world.  Kavya has experience with projects which integrate concepts of net-zero energy and carbon, high performance HVAC and healthy buildings, and general sustainability early in the building design process.

Kavya is committed to accelerating the transition to a more sustainable environment with a continual focus on establishing the integrated bottom line: environmental stewardship, economic inclusion, and social equity.

REFERENCES

Contributor, G. (2021, June 21). Synergies Between LEED, WELL Certifications And ESG Programs. Facility Executive Magazine. https://facilityexecutive.com/2021/06/synergies-between-leed-well-certifications-and-esg-programs/

Dolya, A., Romanin, P., Weise, D., Lupia, F. P., Villani, L. A., & Hemmige, H. (2022, January 11). Boosting ESG Performance in Today’s Energy Supply Chains. BCG Global. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2022/boosting-esg-performance-framework

A Performance-Based Future for Real Asset ESG Reporting. (2019, February 28). GRESB. https://gresb.com/nl-en/2019/02/28/a-performance-based-future-for-real-asset-esg-reporting/

What is green building? (2020). World Green Building Council. https://www.worldgbc.org/what-green-building

Corporate Sustainability – A Converging Opportunity to Simultaneously Reduce Carbon Emissions and Optimize Multi-Tier Supply Chain Risk?

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April 2021

by Pam Styles – Fellow, G&A Institute and Principal & Founder of Next Level Investor Relations LLC

There may be a converging opportunity for companies to accelerate total carbon emissions reductions (Scopes 1, 2 and 3) in collaboration with critical efforts to better understand and mitigate multi-tier supply chain risks that were revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Expansive coverage of emerging trends supporting this thesis is presented in the Resource Paper, The Carbon Key: Transcending ESG Disclosure Frameworks Consolidation and Accelerating Supply Chain Awareness, newly published on the Governance & Accountability Institute website.

HIGHTLIGHTS

✔  A noticeable increase in the number of new articles combining observations about CO2 and supply chain, including articles from the World Economic Forum, The Wall Street Journal and CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project.

✔  Articles supporting the idea that conditions may already exist for the commercial business sector to make real and lasting emissions reductions on its own – sooner and better – than to wait for geo-political negotiations and distant reduction target dates.

✔  Introduction to complementary opportunities for individual companies and the commercial business sector to focus on supply chain CO2 contributors and reductions that are material.

✔  A challenge to imagine if carbon emissions disclosure and performance tracking were prerequisites to resume sourcing from pre-Covid suppliers.

Thinking of these trends from an Investor Relations and ESG communications vantage, with some rudimentary optimization modeling exposure, it is suddenly compelling to take a look at Scope 3.

SCOPE 3 – “THE CARBON KEY”

Scope 3 CO2 emissions include both upstream and downstream categories.

Using guidelines published by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) for layman’s interpretation, Scope 1 (direct) and Scope 2 (indirect) CO2 emissions are defined as coming from sources owned or controlled by an organization; Scope 3 CO2 emissions are a consequence of an organization’s activities, but occur from sources not owned or controlled by the organization.

An excerpt from the Scope 3 guidelines points to, “The reporting organization can identify other indirect (Scope 3) emissions by assessing which of its activities’ emissions… contribute to climate change-related risks, such as financial, regulatory, supply chain, product and customer … “

Upstream categories, at least the first four listed below, could be constructive additions to supply chain optimization models. In this way, companies could assess Scope 3 emissions improvement performance indicators for each potential supplier in a similar way as cost inputs are compared for low-cost sourcing optimization in supply chain modeling and actual procurement decision-making.

SCOPE 3 – CO2 EMISSIONS

Upstream categories

Downstream categories

1. Purchased goods and services

1. Downstream transportation and distribution

2. Capital goods

2. Processing of sold products

3. Fuel- and energy-related activities (not included in Scope 1 or Scope 2)

3. Use of sold products

4. Upstream transportation and distribution

4. End-of-life treatment of sold products

5. Waste generated in operations

5. Downstream leased assets

6. Business travel

6. Franchises

7. Employee commuting

7. Investments

8. Upstream leased assets

Other downstream

Other upstream

 

Source: Global Reporting Initiative Standards GRI KPI 305 – Emissions

CONTEMPLATE & CONSIDER
The Carbon Key article introduces several questions and things to contemplate:

  1. How might companies quickly re-evaluate their supply chain optimization decisions in the immediate post-Covid recovery?

  2. Imagine how different management decisions might be if all layers of CO2 emissions were factored into the total cost of ownership (TCO) in supply chain decisions and risk mitigation.

  3. Notice similarities between companies’ struggle to capture and report Scope 3 CO2 emissions and of supply chain tiers mapping challenges.

    A recent study found, that while 91% of companies can identify the physical location of most or all of their Tier 1 supplier facilities, only 17% could do so of their Tier 3 supplier facilities.

  4. Companies’ leadership and understanding of its complete carbon footprint may be rapidly put to the test as capital markets and respective raters’ increase their attention on this issue.


The ESG/Sustainability field has been quietly maturing in the business sector, while the U.S. and global government sector has been distracted by the pandemic.

✔  The latest annual trends tracking conducted by the Governance & Accountability Institute shows 90% of S&P 500 and 65% of Russell 1000 companies produced sustainability reports as of 2019.

✔  In September 2020, five of the most globally recognized ESG voluntary reporting frameworks – GRI – CDP – SASB – IIRC – TCFD – announced they have pledged to work together in harmonizing ESG framework guidelines.

✔  As these five entities attempt to harmonize guidelines, other entities and collaborations have recently announced development of new ESG disclosure frameworks, i.e., CFA, the Big Four accounting firms, International Business Council (IBC).

✔  ESG-related data suppliers and aggregators continue to assert influence with frequent announcements of new ESG ratings and syndication arrangements to meet the growing information demand.

✔  Carbon emissions is one topic that transcends differences across most of the major voluntary ESG reporting frameworks. No matter which framework guideline(s) a company chooses to use, Scope 1, 2, or 3 CO2 emissions guidelines generally refer to the globally accepted methodology referred to as the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol. The carbon key can unlock interconnections to aid ESG framework harmonization.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Talk to each other! Forget about internal silos and collaborate between teams.

There is every reason to believe that company experts can look at the carbon key to find faster, focused and efficient ways to mesh two seemingly different challenges – supply chain tiers risk and Scope 3 CO2 emissions reduction – for optimization that delivers real return on investment.


Pamela Styles – Fellow, G&A Institute – is Principal and Founder of Next Level Investor Relations LLC, a strategic consultancy with dual Investor Relations and ESG / Sustainability specialties.

 

Pre-crisis, Critical Event(s) / In Crisis! / Prevention, Mitigation – Where Will the World Act in the Context of Climate Change?

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March 29  2021

by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

At certain times, an unknown unknown may strike, rapidly triggering a serious crisis situation.  Think of a tsunami or earthquake.

Many other times the crisis situation occurs and there are at least a dozen, maybe even dozens of precursor events or activities that over time / if neglected by leadership set up the going over the cliff situation.

The G&A Institute team members have collectively helped to manage literally hundreds of critical events or crisis situations over the years for corporate, fiduciary, social sector and other clients.

Alas, we have seen many critical issues and/or events spin into dramatic crisis situations over time — but none with the scale of the dangers posed to humanity and planet by climate change.  Ignoring this is not an option for humankind.

The crisis situations that can be pretty accurately projected or forecast are often years in the buildup.

Leaders may ignore unpleasant situations until things do spin out of control.  There is the powerful human capacity for denial – this can’t be happening / this won’t happen / there are slim chances that “this” will go wrong, and we will lose control of things.

Until things do go terribly wrong.

Think of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks – 20 years ago this year.

What could have been to prevent these? Read the many pages of the report on the attacks published by the US government — you will see page-after-page of factors that illustrate the points made here.

Or, the damages of Hurricane Katrina.  Things were going well in New Orleans – until they were not.

There is the unbelievable, tragic opioid epidemic in the USA. Was anyone tuned in to the unbelievable flow of opiods in the State of West Virginia and other locales?  Many many doses per resident – who was consuming them and why?

Right now – there is the still-out-of-control, worldwide Covid pandemic. There will be abundant case histories published on this in the years to come.

Think about the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill crisis in vulnerable Alaskan waters 30 plus years back — and what could have been addressed in preventative measures. (We did numerous corporate management workshops on this event, walking through two dozen clearly-visible precursor events.  One factor impacted another than another. And another.

Think about what could have been addressed up front to address these situations and other classic crisis situations well ahead of time to prevent or limit the human and physical costs.  The good news?

We have time today to address the unbelievable potential harm to human and widespread physical damages that we will see in the worst cases in global climate changes.

It takes recognition of these serious risks and dangers, the political will to act, widening public support of the leaders’ actions, and considerable financial investment.  So – ask yourself – are we on target with limiting of damages, mitigation for the worse of possible outcomes, and most important, in taking prevention strategies and actions?

Each of us must answer the question and then take action.  The encouraging news is that collective action is now clearly building in volume and momentum – that’s the focus of some of the Top Stories we selected for you in the current newsletter.  There are valuable perspectives shared in these stories.

The world stands at critical point, said UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed to European Parliament Vice President Heidi Hautalan, referencing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The United Nations is working to strengthen its partnership with the EU to deliver on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs – with 169 targets for action). “The work is more urgent than ever” was the message.  This is the decade for multilateral engagement and action – we are but nine years away from a tipping point on climate disasters.

Many companies in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and other regions have publicly declared their support of the SDGs – but now how are they doing on the follow up “action steps” – especially concrete strategies and actions to implement their statements (walking-the-talk on SDGs)?

The Visual Capitalist provides answers with a neat infographic from MSCI; the powerhouse ESG ratings & rankings organization sets out the SDG alignment of 8550 companies worldwide.

Are they “strongly aligned” or “aligned” or “misaligned” or “strongly misaligned”?  Looking at this important research effort by MSCI, we learn that 598 companies are “strongly misaligned” on Responsible Consumption and Production” (Goal 12) – the highest of all goals.

Could we as individual consumers and/or investors and/or employees of these firms help to change things in time?  (Back to the proposition — Think about what could have been addressed up front to address these situations and other classic crisis situations well ahead of time to prevent or limit the human and physical costs.)

Are we willing to make tough decisions about these enterprises – about the climate crisis overall?

And this from the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock:  The firm will push companies to step up their efforts to protect the environment from deforestation, biodiversity loss and pollution of the oceans and freshwater resources.  T

his from guidelines recently published by the firm, including the readiness to vote against directors if companies have not effectively managed or disclosed risks related to the depletion of natural capital – the globe’s natural resources.

President Joe Biden, in office now for just over two months, has a full plate of crisis, pre-crisis and post-crisis situations to deal with.

Intervention is key, of course, President Biden and VP Kamala Harris have set out the “Climate Crisis Agenda” for our consideration.  One of the big challenges?  Our oceans – and the incoming head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will be on point for this part of the agenda.

NPR Radio had interesting perspectives to share on the warming of the oceans and what can be done to prevent further damage.

We bring you the details of all the above in our selections of Top Stories for this week’s newsletter.  Of course, there is action being taken.  Is it enough to prevent global disasters as the climate changes?

Your answers and actions (as well as “ours”) can help to determine the answers!

TOP STORIES for you…

Watching the Major Stock Indexes – For Strong ESG Signals from the Corporate Sector

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by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

October 2020

Indexes – Indices – Benchmarks – these are very important financial analysis and portfolio management tools for asset owners and their internal and external managers.

We can think of them as a sort of report card; fiduciaries can track their performance against the benchmark for the funds they manage; financial sector players can develop products for investment (mutual funds, Exchange Traded Funds, separate accounts and so on) to market to investors using the appropriate benchmark.

If the investable products are focused on the available equities of the largest market cap companies for investment, the most widely-used indexes will likely be the S&P 500®, created back in March 1957 by Standard & Poor’s and the Russell 1000®, created in 1984 by the Frank Russell Company.

Today the S&P 500 Index is managed by the S&P Global organization.  The Russell 1000 is managed by FTSE Russell, a unit of the LSE Group (London Stock Exchange Group).

There are more or less 500 corporate entities in the S&P 500 Index that measures the equity performance of these companies (those listed on major exchanges).

There are other important indexes by S&P for investors to track:  The S&P Global 1200, S&P MidCap 400, and S&P SmallCap 600, and many more.

Russell 1000® is a subset of the Russell 3000®; it is comprised of the 1000 largest market cap companies in the USA. The R1000 represents more than 90% of the USA’s top publicly-traded companies in the large-cap category.  Both indexes are very important tools for professional investment managers and send strong trending signals to the capital markets.

The G&A Institute team closely tracks the ESG and sustainability  disclosure & reporting practices and each year; since 2010 we’ve published research on the trends, first with the S&P 500, and for 2019 and 2020, we expanded our research into to the larger Russell 1000 index. (The top half of the 1000 roughly mirrors the S&P 500.)

The 500 and 1000 companies are important bellwethers in tracking the amazing expansion of corporate sustainability reporting over the past decade.  Yes, there were excellent choices of select benchmarks for sustainable and responsible investors going back several decades – such as the Domini 400, going back to 1990 — and we tracked those as well.  (The “400” was renamed the MSCI KLD 400 Social Index in 2010).

But once major publicly-traded companies in the United States began escalating the pace of sustainability and ESG reporting, many more investors paid attention.  And media tuned in.  And then the ESG indexes proliferated like springtime blooms!

Those bigger customers (the large cap companies) of other firms began expanding their  ESG “footprint” and considering the supply and sourcing partners to be part of their ESG profile.  So, customers are now queried regularly on their ESG performance and outcomes.

Once the critical mass — 90% of large-cap U.S. companies reporting in our latest S&P 500 research – how long will it be for many more mid-caps, small-caps, privately-owned enterprises to follow the example?  Very soon, we think.  And we’re closely watching!  (And will bring the news to you.)

If you have not reviewed the results of the G&A Institute research on the ESG reporting of the S&P 500 and the Russell 1000 for 2019, here are the links:

Note:  Click here for more helpful background on the S&P 500 and the Russell 1000 large equities/stock indexes, here is Investopedia’s explanation.

Excellent Wrap up From GreenBiz:
At last, corporate sustainability reporting is hitting its stride

About “Stakeholder Capitalism”: The Public Debate

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Here is the Transition — From the Long-Dominant Worldview of “Stockholder Capitalism” in a Changed World to…Stakeholder Capitalism!

by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

October 2020

As readers of of G&A Institute’s weekly Sustainability Highlights newsletter know, the shift from “stockholder” to “stakeholder” capitalism has been underway in earnest for a good while now — and the public dialogue about this “21st Century Sign of Progress” has been quite lively.

What helped to really frame the issue in 2019 were two developments:

  • First, CEO Larry Fink, who heads the world’s largest asset management firm (BlackRock) sent a letter in January 2019 to the CEOs of companies in portfolio to focus on societal purpose (of course, in addition to or alongside of corporate mission, and the reasons for being in business).
  • Then in August, the CEOs of almost 200 of the largest companies in the U.S.A. responded; these were members of influential Business Roundtable (BRT), issuing an update to the organization’s mission statement to embrace the concepts of “purpose” and further cement the foundations of stakeholder capitalism.

These moves helped to accelerate a robust conversation already well underway, then further advanced by the subset discussion of Corporate America’s “walking-the-talk” of purpose et al during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Now we are seeing powerful interests weighing in to further accelerate the move away from stockholder primacy (Professor Milton Friedman’s dominant view for decades) to now a more inclusive stakeholder capitalism.  We bring you a selection of perspectives on the transition.

The annual gathering of elites in Davos, Switzerland this year — labeled the “Sustainable Development Impact Summit” — featured a gaggle of 120 of the world’s largest companies collaborating to develop a core set of common metrics / disclosures on “non-financials” for both investors and stakeholders. (Of course, investors and other providers of capital ARE stakeholders — sometimes still the inhabiting the primacy space on the stakeholder wheel!)

What are the challenges business organizations face in “making business more sustainable”?

That is being further explored months later by the World Economic Forum (WEF-the Davos organizers) — including the demonstration (or not) of excellence in corporate citizenship during the Covid-19 era. The folks at Davos released a “Davos Manifesto” at the January 2020 meetings (well before the worst impacts of the virus pandemic became highly visible around the world).

Now in early autumn 2020 as the effects of the virus, the resulting economic downturn, the rise of civil protests, and other challenges become very clear to C-suite, there is a “Great Reset” underway (says the WEC).

The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window opportunity to “reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future.”

New ESG reporting metrics released in September by the World Economic Forum are designed to help companies report non-financial disclosures as part of the important shift to Stakeholder Capitalism.

There are four pillars to this approach:  People (Human Assets); Planet (the impact on natural environment); Prosperity (employment, wealth generation, community); and Principles of Governance (strategy, measuring risk, accounting and of course, purpose).

The WEF will work with the five global ESG framework and standard-setting organizations as we reported to you recently — CDSB, IIRC, CDP, GRI, SASB plus the IFAC looking at a new standards board (under IFRS).

Keep in mind The Climate Disclosure Standards Board was birthed at Davos back in 2007 to create a new generally-accepted framework for climate risk reporting by companies. The latest CDSB report has 21 core and 34 expanded metrics for sustainability reporting. With the other four collaborating organizations, these “are natural building blocks of a single, coherent, global ESG reporting system.”

The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC, another of the collaborators) weighed in to welcome the WEF initiative (that is in collaboration with Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PWC) to move toward common ESG metrics. And all of this is moving toward “COP 26” (the global climate talks) which has the stated goal of putting in place reporting frameworks so that every finance decision considers climate change.

“This starts”, says Mark Carney, Governor, Bank of England, and Chair of the Financial Stability Board, “with reporting…this should be integrated reporting”.

Remember, the FSB is the sponsor of the TCFD for climate-related financial disclosure.  FSB is a collaboration of the central banks and treasury ministries of the G-20 nations.

“COP 26 was scheduled for November in Glasgow, Scotland, and was postponed due to the pandemic. We are now looking at plans for a combined 26 and 27 meeting in November 2021.”  Click here for more information.

There is a lot of public dialogue centered on these important moves by influential players shaping and advancing ESG reporting — and we bring you a selection of those shared perspectives in our Top Stories in the Sustainability Highlights newsletter this week.

Top Stories On Davos & More

And then there is this, in the public dialogue on Stakeholder Capitalism, adding a dash of “reality” from The New York Times: