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


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

COMMIT!Forum is Fast Approaching — New Venue, New Conference Managers, Innovative Approaches, Great Conversations…

The October 2017 Event Will Convene in Washington DC’s Maryland suburbs — New Venue is the fabulous MGM National Harbor.

 

Posted August 1, 2017
By Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

The annual COMMIT!Forum has set the pace for Corporate Responsibility / Sustainability / Public Affairs / Corporate Communications professionals and their peers as “the place to gather” for a decade and more.

This is the longest running CSR / CR event and is part of the range of activities that were put in place and managed by the SharedXpertise Media LLC organization.

In April 2017, 3BL Media Group acquired the COMMIT!Forum — along with management of membership group, the Corporate Responsibility Association (CRA); the CRA webinar series; and publication of the influential CR Magazine.

You probably know the widely-recognized “100 Best Corporate Citizens” rankings — senior corporate management actively pursues this important CR Magazine recognition.

The professional membership CRA will now be managed by a unit of 3BL, the Corporate Responsibility Board.

The good news is that COMMIT!Forum conference is now under the innovative, very savvy management. The theme of the upcoming October 2017 event:

Brands Taking Stands – the Role of the Corporate Responsibility Practitioner as Companies Make Their Voices Heard.

The annual conference brings together CR practitioners, corporate communications officers, heads of foundations, not-for-profit leaders, sustainability pros, and media representatives.

The 2017 conference will feature 10 “issue tables,” to emphasize the value of networking and peer-to-peer sharing — these will be moderated by professional subject matter experts (SMEs):

  • Topic 1: Data Driven Content Strategies; Storytelling that Works
  • Topic 2: NextGen Reporting in a Changing Cultural Landscape
  • Topic 3: Emerging Social Influence on Supply Chains
  • Topic 4: CR Impact on Talent Acquisition and Retention
  • Topic 5: Lead or Follow: Relevance in the E-World
  • Topic 6: Where Are You? Your Company’s North Star on SDGs
  • Topic 7: Risk and Rewards of Taking a Stand
  • Topic 8: Engaging Your Stakeholders in Digital Advocacy
  • Topic 9: Partner Matching: Activating CR Initiatives and the Imperative of Collaboration
  • Topic 10: Materiality Assessments to Supply Chain Management: Digital Platforms that Drive Success

Finalists for the coveted Responsible CEO Award will participate in panel discussions and one-to-one interviews; these provide valuable insight into successful programs at companies where “purpose is integral to culture and mission,” conference organizers note.

The COMMIT! meetings have traditionally been held in New York City; this year the event moves to the MGM National Harbor, just outside of Washington DC and convenient for Amtrak travelers all along the Washington-NYC-Philadelphia-Boston business corridor.

Prestigious brands: CRA member flagship companies include: Marriott; Visa; IBM; Adobe; AT&T; Hess; Sprint; PwC; Gap; Intel; Johnson Controls; Aramark; Smithfield; and many more — representatives of these companies will be at the COMMIT!Forum.

G&A Institute team has enjoyed a long-time partnership with 3BL Media The going back to the days of both companies’ founding and has long been a sponsor of the COMMIT!Forum meetings.

G&A Institute team members — including EVP and Co-Founder Lou Coppola – will be active participants at COMMIT!Forum.

We are offering today to our connections a special offer for Early Bird registration:  10% off early bird pricing for COMMIT!Forum (extends through August 15th for you).

Save an additional 10% using G&A’s discount code “G&A2017CF” when you register at commitforum.com

The G&A Institute team looks forward to seeing you at the conference – -the latch key is out!

About 3BL Media Group
The 3BL team provides a multi-channel news and content distribution platform for corporate clients, including Report Alert, Triple Pundit, CSR Wire, SocialEarth, Just Means, and, of course, 3BL Sustainability Communications platform.

A new business unit is the Corporate Responsibility Board LLC, housing COMMIT!Forum, the CR Association, and CR Magazine. 3BL’s Dave Armon is CEO (before joining 3BL he was COO of PR Newswire).

Global Warming – As the Phenomenon Ends, The Ice Begins? In Year 2060

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

Keep your eye on 2060, when the Ice Age begins and Global Warming ends, say the folks at Samsung Chemical Coating (“SCC”) in The New York Times advertisement…

Did the headline grab your attention? It sure caught mine.

The headline and some of the content from a full-page advertisement appearing today in The New York Times, is signed by Samsung Chemical Coating Co. Ltd. (for the record, they’ve also said this is material “copyrighted” and not for re-distribution). This is Fair Use reporting for you.

The ad is a full page display in the well-read Science Times Section of the Times; titled: “When Global Warming Ends, about the year 2060, The Ice Age will Begin”).

There are five main messages for you from Samsung:

(1) (Perspectives About) the Beginning of Global Warming

(2) There is No Relationship Between the Amount of Carbon Dioxide Emissions and the Global Warming

(3) (About the) Ice Age Environment

(4) Large Extinction of Living Things (like all of us humans)

(5) (Message to) The US Government and Scott Pruitt, US EPA

Highlights:

Global Warming, says Samsung (SCC) management, is one of the natural phenomena that occurs at the end of inter-glacial periods. There is more explanation for you (according to the ad) in The Washington Post on February 28th of a “study” by Samsung. *

There is no relationship between CO2 emissions and global warming. It’s about Earth wobbling (“precession*), certain star tracks, and seas warming and rising.

The Earth’s glaciers (today’s Big Ice) will be reduced by Year 2060 at, the end of the inter-glacial period we’re in, and then the Earth will begin to form new glaciers; earthquakes and tsunami’s will occur; radiation from the sun will pummel Earth; extreme temperatures will occur; really large hurricanes will occur.

And then – oh, boy! — the New Ice Age coming about 2060 will reach to New York City, growing ever-taller over 200 years, and everything living will become extinct!  The dead critturs will eventually drift down to decay and become coal and carbon/oil for future generations (if there any) to use. There may well be; Samsung’s paid message says creatures exposed to the sun’s radiation will mutate and new species will emerge.

Finally — Samsung, while saying that nothing can be done about the catastrophe coming, thanks to the Law of Nature (and Earth wobble, stars aligning, oceans warming, pole ice disappearing, glaciers melting and then re-forming, radiation increasing, giant storms, and more) — and so,  Scott Pruitt, US EPA Administrator, “…should review the results of ]Samsung’s] study and find ALTERNATIVE (my emphasis) MEASURES to minimize the damage of the catastrophe that will occur…”

Oh, and the future of Mankind depends on Administrator Pruitt and President Donald Trump.

A key line in the ad:  “We can say that the cause of global warming is not from carbon dioxide emissions.”

The company – it’s a a privately-owned South Korean firm, according to Bloomberg LP  — has run somewhat similar ads in the past.  * We could find no mention of “the study” in The Washington Post edition of February 28, 2017 as mentioned in today’s ad.

We got to thinking: Is this a joke? (It’s not April 1st yet.)  Someone who gave up tweeting to write more long-form messages in the wee hours of the morning?  Something unusual to get us thinking? About?

Is this a planned distraction from the more pressing issues in Washington DC — like the former President spying on the new President when he was a candidate? Something really jarring to justify the drastic cuts proposed by the new administration at the US EPA?  Is this fodder for global warming deniers?

The ad is real:  I have a printed copy right here on the desk as it appears in the NYT ScienceTimes Section!

What to you think?  Let us know….

FINALLY — there is an email in the ad if you wanted to communicate with someone:

  • Heemun Kang – scck22@hanmail.net
  • or Jimin Kang or Josung Kang

** Precession:  changes that occur as equinoxes change in successive sidereal year (Oxford: sidereal — “as determined by stars”).

The DJSI – Analytical Game Changer in 1999 – Sustainable Investing Pacesetter in 2014

by Hank Boerner – Chairman – Chief Strategist, G&A Institute

updated with information provided to me by RobecoSAM for clarification on 17 September 2014.

It was 15 years ago (1999) that an important — and game-changing  “sustainability investing” resource came in a big way to the global capital markets; that year, S&P Dow Jones Indices and Robeco SAM teamed to create the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices. This is described by the managers as “…the first global index to track the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide,” based on analysis of financially material economic, environmental and social (societal) factors. Breakthrough, game-changing stuff, no?

Note “financially material” – not “intangible” or “non-financial,” as some capital market holdouts initially (and continue to) described the sustainable investing approach.  There were but handfuls of “sustainability-driven” companies in world capital markets for selection for the World benchmark.  1999 — -that year the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was assembling its first comprehensive framework for corporate reporting (G#) byond the numbers alone.  Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) was a steadily maturing organization mounting proxy campaigns to challenge the risky behavior of major companies that were polluting the Earth.  The Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) was the go-to source for information on corporate behaviors, particularly related to corporate governance issues.  (And CG issues were rapidly expanding – the governance misbehaviors of unsustainable companies such as of Enron, WorldCom, et al, were not yet as evident as when they collapsed three years later.). Robert Monks and Nell Minow were active in Hermes Lens Asset Management, continuing to target poorly managed companies and encouraging laggard CEOs to move on. (Monks’s book, “The Emperor’s Nightingale,” was just out that year.)

Over the next 15 years, the managers of DJSI benchmarks steadily expanded their analysis and company-picking; the complex now offers choices beyond “World” —  of Dow Jones Sustainability Asia Pacific; Australia; Emerging Markets; Europe; Korea; and North America.

A handful of “sustainability-driven” companies have been aboard “World” for all of the 15 years; this is the honors list for some investors:  Baxter International (USA); Bayer AG; BMW; BT Group PLC; Credit Suisse Group; Deutsche Bank AG; Diageo PLC; Intel (USA); Novo Nordisk; RWE AG; SAP AG; Siemens AG: Storebrand; Unilever; United Health Group (USA).  Updated:  And Sainsbury’s PLC.

Though the DJSI indices have been availble to investors for a decade-and-a-half, it is only in the past few years that we hear more and more from corporate managers that senior executives are paying much closer attention.  “The CEO wants to be in the DJSI,” we frequently hear now.

Each year about this time the DJSI managers select new issues for inclusion and drop some existing component companies.  Selected to be in the World:  Amgen; Commonwealth Bank of Australia; GlaxoSmithKline PLC.  Out of the DJSI World:  Bank of America Corp; General Electric Co; Schlumberger Ltd.

DJSI managers follow a “best-in-lcass” approach, looking closely at companies in all industries that outperform their peers in a growing number of sustainability metrics.  There are about 3,000 companies invited to respond to RobecoSAM’s “Corporate Sustainability Assessment” — effective response can require a considerable commitment of time and resources by participating companies to be considered.  Especially if the enterprise is not yet “sustainability-driven.”  We’ve helped companies to better understand and respond to the DJSI queries; it’s a great exercise for corporate managers to better understand what DJSI managers consider to be “financially material.”  And to help make the case to their senior executives (especially those wanting to be in the DJSI).

updated informationRobecoSAM invites about 2,500 companies in the S&P Global Broad Market Index to participate in the assessment process; these are enterprises in 59 industries as categorized by RobecoSAM, located in 47 countries.

The new G$ framework from GRI, which many companies in the USA, EU and other markets use for their corporate disclosure and reporting, stresses the importance of materiality — it’s at the heart of the enhanced guidelines.  The head of indices for RobecoSAM (Switzerland), Guido Giese, observes:  “Since 1999, we’ve heled investors realize the financial materiality of sustainability and companies continue to tell us that the DJSI provides an excellent tool to measure the effectiveness of their sustainability strategies.”

Sustainability strategies — “strategy” comes down to us through the ages from the Ancient Greek; “stratagem”…the work of generals…the work of the leader…generalship…”  Where top leadership (and board) is involved, the difference (among investment and industry peers) is often quite clear.

At the S&P Dow Jones  Index Committee in the USA, David Blitzer, managing director and chair of the committee, said about the 15 years of indices work: “Both the importance and the understanding of sustainability has grown dramatically over the past decade-and-a-half…the DJSI have been established as the leading benchmark in the field…:”

The best-in-class among the “sustainability-driven” companies that we see in our close monitoring as GRI’s exclusive Data Partner in the USA, UK and Ireland, the company’s senior leadership is involved, committed and actively guiding the company’s sustainability journey.  And that may be among the top contributions to sustainable investing of DJSI managers over these 15 years.

Congratulations and Happy Anniversary to RobecoSAM and S&P Dow Jones Indices (a unit of McGraw Hill Financial).  Well done!  You continue to set the pace for investors and corporates in sustainable investing.

Green Purchasing by Uncle Sam – Are You a Federal Government Supplier – Contractor?

by Hank Boerner, Chairman, G&A Institute

The United States Government is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the U.S.A., and some project, in the world.  (US$500 billion in the latest budget.) So – if you are selling to Uncle Sam, tune in to the guidelines recently published the Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA).  In December EPA proposed (in draft form) rules for “greener and safer” products to be purchased by the Federal government.

The public comment period is open but expect that sometime soon we will see the official guidelines for supplier companies to follow.  Part of the initiative is to assess the growing number of “eco-labels” in use by trade associations, NGOs, standard setters, etc.

Says EPA:  “These guidelines will make it easier for Federal purchasors to meet the existing goal of 95 percent sustainable purchases, while spurring consumers and private sector to use and demand greener and safer products…” The EPA and the GSA (General Services Administration) created the guidelines for agencies and departments to use in their sourcing.

To emphasize:  The Executive Order requires Federal agencies to ensure 95 percent of new contracts to be “green.”

The EPA/GSA initiative is one of the most recent steps in a continuing journey toward greater sustainability by the Federal government.  Executive Order #13514 got this journey going in earnest in October 2009, soon after President Barack Obama got his administration up and running and cabinet posts filled.  It’s officially the “Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance” mandate for all government agencies to follow.

Haven’t been following this EO?  How about the one in August 2012 — “Accelerating Investment in Industrial Energy Efficiency?”  There’s sure to be lots of risk and opportunities inherent in this EO, which addresses the US industrial sector use of energy (30% of the total usage).  The Feds will encourage investment in combined heat and power systems (CHP); the effort involves key departments — Energy, Commerce, Agriculture, EPA, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

There’s lots going on at the Federal government level, and in similar activities in the trickle down into state and municipal governments, as some of the spate of EO’s call for assistance to public agencies at local levels.

We’ll be visiting the Federal government’s dramatic journey to greater sustainability to bring you more news and details…that could present risk or opportunity to your organization.

And in February (25 and 26) at the World Bank in Washington DC, Governance & Accountability Institute and partners, ISOS Group, will present a 2-day, interactive sustainability materiality and reporting workshop for public sector agencies and their suppliers and contractors.  This is the kick off of the GRI Business Transparency Program in the USA for the Public Sector (all levels).  Participants will receive certification and will enjoy specialized guidance during the 6 months that follow by G&A and ISOS.

For information — http://isosgroup.com/gri-certified-reporting/trainings/materiality/

Sector-specific sessions are now scheduled for Food & Agriculture, Beauty & Chemical, Energy & Utilities, Hotels & Tourism.  Details are at the above web site page.

You can also learn more about the agencies that you do business with as they publish their progress reports on sustainability.  These are due this month (all agencies are supposed to report in January of each year).  Also, the largest of the Federal contractors – think of Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics — are publishing sustainability reports.

Also – look at the US Postal Service and the US Army sustainability reports to get an idea of what your customers are saying about their role in the Federal sustainability journey.

Watch this space for news & updates on Federal government actions…especially as the White House issues Executive Orders in President Obama’s second (and last) term in office.