Transparency in ESG and the Circular Economy: Capturing Opportunities Through Data

The Committee for Economic Development,2 with its track record since the post-war period of engaging business leadership to confront global issues and shape public policy, published the Social Responsibilities of Business Corporations3 in 1971. It presented the idea of a social contract between business and society, where corporations exist as a re

More recently, in an important move toward consolidation in ESG standards, in 2020, SASB has announced a merger with IIRC to take place by mid-2021.29 The merger is meant to simplify ESG disclosures.

More recently, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) launched the Task Force for Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, which in 2017 released recommendations to support companies disclosing this information to support capital allocation. These recommendations focus on four themes for organizational operations: governance, strategy, risk management,

Porter and Kramer discuss several examples of corporations that can analyze their social responsibility opportunities with the same frameworks that guide their core business decisions, and in doing so, have discovered unique market opportunities to capitalize on (e.g., Whole Foods, Toyota, Volvo). These are companies that have integrated ESG concer

The social contract proposed three main responsibilities of businesses, which are still relevant today: providing jobs and economic growth, ensuring fairness with respect to employees and customers, and becoming involved to improve the conditions of the broader community and environment where it operates.

With the increasing demand from investors for ESG conscious investment opportunities, and the potential for significant returns, the need for portfolio construction tools and metrics to analyze and compare investment options took off. Founded in 2009, the Global Impact Investment Network (GIIN),30 for instance, represents a commitment to utilize ES

The emerging concept of creating shared value (CSV) described in Chapter 1, as a development beyond CSR, is a push to shift CSR practices from being cost centers disconnected from business strategy to becoming a source of profitability through innovation and competitive advantage.

Over the long term, High Sustainability companies were found to significantly outperform Low Sustainability companies, both with respect to stock market performance and accounting measures (e.g., return-on-equity and return-on-assets). It may be concluded that the implementation of sustainability practices, and the ability to institutionalize them

These classification systems offer unique industry-specific financial metrics, which are mapped to the Sustainable Industry Classification System (SICS)26 system. Current industry categories consist of consumer goods, extracts and minerals processing, financials, food and beverage, health care, infrastructure, renewable resources and alternative en