Transparency or greenwashing: what do investors want to know?
by Kylene Casanova
How do environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk disclosures affect potential investment in a business – and how the company is perceived by investors and stakeholders? A study by Financial Executives International, in collaboration with Donnelley Financial Solutions, tells companies what investors want to know and what they should be disclosing.
The report – Transparency or greenwashing – came to the following conclusions:
- investors want ESG information and are obtaining it from many different places;
- having a sustainability programme and/or producing a CSR report are not the same thing as having a sustainable business strategy;
- companies need to determine the most important sustainability and ESG issues for creating long-term value in their businesses;
- big data is about to collide with sustainability and ESG to a large extent.
One of the investment managers interviewed in the study said: “Transparency plays a major role in driving increased investor interest in ESG topics.”
Another added: “As investors, we’re focused on identifying companies with long-term, sustainable business models. and more often than not, you can determine whether a company is truly focused on creating long-term value by looking at its approach to key ESG issues.”
Read more and download the full report here.
CTMfile take: Disclosing environmental, social and governance risks is becoming an increasingly prominent issue for companies and the impact of ESG on financial statements is an area of growing importance to investors.
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