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| Corporate Sustainability- Advice For Fortune Readers — Its Not a Choice but Critical to Your Business
Two McKinsey managers present a commentary for Fortune readers — corporate executives, board members, managers -– corporate sustainability is now critical to your business. Cited: a McKinsey survey of 340 executives; 90% of respondents initiated their sustainability journey based on risk management concerns. Authors Jeremy Oppenheim and Martin Stuchtey present brief examples of corporate benefits of sustainability efforts (a brewing company, water utility, China-based industrial), and examples of WalMart Stores, Nike, Unilever, DuPont sustainability initiatives. These explain the important “how” of the companies’ efforts. Sustainability, they write, is a “crucial competitive tool” for the corporation today. Managements are, after saying “yes” (let’s start our journey) and then setting priorities, deciding on targets, estimating costs and looking at incentives (including CEO compensation). But on setting targets – McKinsey looked at S&P 500 companies, and while the majority now publish sustainability reports, only 1-in-5 companies have long-term goals in place even though execs consider sustainability among their top 3 concerns. (G&A Institute looks at S&P 500 reporting each year; our most recent finding is that 75% of the companies now publish reports. The content of course is as varied as the body of companies that comprise this important and most widely-used investing benchmark.) In our close monitoring of the corporate sector, we are seeing continuing pressure on companies to embrace sustainability as a core or crucial aspect of corporate operations. Customers are surveying their supply chain partners to determine the activities — and the progress made or not — by their key service and product suppliers. Third party service providers are profiling supply chain partners’ sustainability efforts. Company boards and senior managements are carefully evaluating the activities of their investing and industry peers to benchmark where they are. Employees are asking, “what are we doing to be more sustainable” a question that can impact recruitment and retention and employee motivation. And more mainstream asset management houses are adopting approaches to evaluate corporate ESG performance in their portfolio management. The Fortune commentary is very useful for your internal discussions, one more helpful aid in “making the business case” to board and senior management team. We encourage your reading. Here at G&A Institute we help our clients at all stages of the Sustainability journey. Part of our pro-bono work with the Global Reporting Initiative (as their exclusive data partner in the US, UK and Ireland) involves analyzing every sustainability report published in these three countries for over 100 important data points. This underlying “big data” is one of the important resources that we utilize in creating client services and intelligence that no other U.S. sustainability consultancy offers. For example, G&A’s competitive benchmarking services and materiality projects start by utilizing the underlying foundation of this big data which makes our process more efficient, accurate and complete. If you’re interested in engaging with the Institute on your company’s sustainability journey, please contact Louis Coppola at lcoppola@ga-institute.com to set up a complimentary consultation call.
Top Story of the Week Like it or not, sustainability is now core to your business The Global Sourcing Council Appoints Louis Coppola to Board of Directors Sustainability in Focus Why We Need A Sustainable Development Goal for Forced Human Displacement 5 Questions For Business Leaders Who Believe In A Sustainable Revolution CSRwire Special Report: United Nations General Assembly – “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” Sustainability: Always Worthy, But Suddenly Far From Boring UN chief calls for backing for new sustainability agenda Volkswagen cut from top sustainability index Walmart: There’s no conflict between sustainability and good business Cities: the best place to strive for sustainability How Superstorm Sandy turned the tide on sustainability in NYC ‘Reinventing’ sustainability: A collaborative passion
ESG Issues & Players Shell pulls the plug on Arctic exploration for now Investors to Washington: You’re confusing us Corporate Social Responsibility has become a racket – and a dangerous one Chinese Products Harm Environment More Than Anyone Else’s: Study Co-Authored by UCI
Asset Managers, US Pension Funds, Qatar plans $35 billion of US investments with New York office NYC mayor urges pension funds to sell coal stocks 10 Americans who are not only wealthy but charitable
Watching the Watchers
Headquarters: Paris, France KEY PARTNERS OVERVIEW / MISSION “Eurosif, European Social Investment Forum, was created in 2001 to serve as an umbrella association to cover socially responsible investment issues at the European level.” Forum members are pension funds, financial service providers, academic and research institutions, and NGOs. Members’ collective assets total more than 1 trillion Euros. Eurosif assists members through four types of activities: • European Union lobbying; BACKGROUND Eurosif works closely with the European Union’s Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs & Equal Opportunities. The Directorate General’s task is “contributing to the development of a modern, innovative and sustainable European Social Model with more and better jobs in an inclusive society based on equal opportunities.” Publications are a big part of Eurosif’s work, including reports, articles, and other pieces available for download on the Eurosif Web site. News Sweeps Madison raises $825m for liquidity fund The value of doing good: Can ethics help brands make money’ |
Check It Out… G&A Institute Sustainability Update™ RECENT POSTS Dodd-Frank Act at 5 Years – Not Quite Done in Rulemaking Are Consumer Companies Serious About What They Say In Their Sustainability/Responsibility Reports? Results Announced for 2015 Dow Jones Sustainability Indices Review
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Navigating the way to sustainability… Copyrights for other providers are noted where appropriate. Please credit the source if quoted.
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| SustainabilityHQ Highlights is prepared by the Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. based on continuous monitoring of trends and developments in Sustainability and ESG. Click here for more information on the Governance & Accountability Institute’s SustainabilityHQ resources. The SustainabilityHQ™ platform is available by subscription.
Governance & Accountability Instiute is the “Sustainability Headquarters™” for clients in the corporate, investment, public and social sectors. Based in New York, G&A is a for-profit consulting organization providing a range of value-added strategies, services and resources related to ESG & sustainability to clients in the corporate and capital markets communities. The G&A services portfolio includes: SustainabilityHQ™ is managed and published by Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. |
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Corporate Sustainability — Advice For Fortune Readers — It’s Not a “Choice”
October 7, 2015
