ESG & CR Issues Monitoring & Research

Challenge:Understanding the complexities (the risks and opportunities) of the ESG operating environment; in the new normal of the capital markets, who is monitoring your company, what are they saying, how are they characterizing your enterprise, and what are the outcomes of this monitoring, ranking, rating and opinion-shaping?

ESG, Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Issue Monitoring & Research

There are many issues in the three "buckets" of the ESG frameworks used by analysts and investors (and of importance to stakeholders). These can be classified as new and emerging, some chronic and persistent, and these can affect a number of companies in an industry or sector; or be unique and especially challenging to a small group of companies…or perhaps just one company in particular.

Some issues are becoming universal concerns for public companies – water footprint (supply availability, processing and usage, waste, product content); or carbon footprint (emissions, concerns about cap & trade, energy reduction, alternative energy sourcing). Issues can be generated by rapid or dramatic changes in the business operating environment, perhaps by a competitor's move, government regulation or shape-shifting by a dominant organization (such as Wal-Mart Stores adopting broad-based sustainability strategies that affect thousands of suppliers).

Or, critical issues can be concentrated in an industry and separate leaders and laggards very quickly – this often happens in food and agriculture (as in coffee, cocoa, palm oil, water use, minerals mining, oil and gas).

Our team monitors the ESG environment in these ways:

  • Researchers and editors monitor public media and communications of all types to aggregate important news, commentary and research results, many of which are published on the Institute's various web-based and publishing platforms. (Each day hundreds of sources are monitored on a global basis and this news and intelligence is entered into our comprehensive subject matter databases.)
  • We identify and chart the current and especially the emerging issues that are affecting companies and business operations on a global basis.
  • We monitor the ESG capital market participants and players that are shaping and influencing corporate valuations, access to capital, corporate reputations, media coverage trends, legislative and regulatory response, and other impacts on the corporate sector. The issue that they shape and influence can have immediate or longer-term impact on corporations.
  • This continuous issue monitoring is the firm foundation on which we structure our services to clients, and the content of our communications channels (public and private or client-only).
  • Our principal strategist is the former chair of the [global] Issue Management Council, the premier organization for issue management professionals, including many employed by US and EU publicly-traded corporations.

Bottom line: Corporations conduct business with an implied societal license to operate. Just because a financial analyst or asset owner or manager – or employees, an important supplier, customer or business partner – may not be asking questions about your organization's ESG performance or Sustainability strategies and initiatives doesn't mean that they are uninterested. Shareholders and stakeholders may be getting about your company's ESG performance from third party providers. Knowing who these providers are is of critical importance now (to corporate managers) for they are shaping valuations, access to capital markets, and influencing corporate reputations.