The latest report from Corporate Secretary is an analysis of how corporate professionals and investors engage on ESG issues. Based on the responses of more than 100 corporate governance professionals, more than 150 members of the investment community and around 200 IR professionals, the report breaks down the data by region, market cap size and sector.
This report investigates how companies report on ESG matters and what ESG-related interactions do they have with investors. It also looks at the benefits of ESG disclosure and how the investment community values the importance of ESG.
Key findings
- Most larger companies have a sustainability team responsible for ESG communications.
- Conference calls are the most common ESG-related investor event.
- Governance is the most common ESG-related issue to be discussed with investors. More than half of all small-cap IROs never discuss environmental issues.
- Governance accounts for 44 percent of ESG reporting.
- Just over a third of IR professionals monitor their ESG ratings at least quarterly.
- Nearly half of IROs have participated in a survey from an ESG ratings agency in the past year
- Better relationships with shareholders is clearly considered the main benefit of ESG disclosure by IROs.
- More fund managers frequently take account of ESG ratings in their investment decisions than rarely or never do.
- Most investors prefer to see ESG as part of an integrated report.
- Fund managers view ESG as more important in investment decisions than do either buy-side or sell-side analysts.
- More than a third of governance professionals say the corporate secretary or general counsel has primary responsibility for ESG communications.
- At larger issuers, the most common type of direct interaction on ESG issues for governance professionals is ESG-focused conference calls.
- Almost half of governance respondents at larger companies have talked about environmental policy with investors at least quarterly over the past year.
- Governance professionals are responding to more than seven information requests or questionnaires from ESG rating agencies/index providers each year.
- Only 4 percent of large companies never check them.
