Governance professionals to share advice at ESG forum next week

Leading governance and investor relations professionals will gather in New York next week to share their expertise and practical guidance on how colleagues can address some of the most pressing ESG issues facing US companies. Those include the implications of this year’s proxy season, getting boards on track to handle ESG and having successful communications with the outside world, including on political issues.

The ESG Integration Forum & Awards – Summer takes place next Thursday, July 14, in person in New York. Details of the agenda and the awards can be found here. 

The event includes a review of another extraordinary proxy season that has seen record numbers of ESG shareholder proposals and interesting trends around voting and engagement on those proposals. It also features a look at some of the practical takeaways from the SEC’s landmark proposal that would mandate disclosure around climate risks, but which potentially faces headwinds following the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling curbing the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. 

Panelists will engage in a discussion around how boards can be best prepared to fulfill their duty to oversee ESG-related risks, including which part of the board is responsible for ESG oversight, when ESG discussions happen – and on what topics – and how the board’s ESG oversight capabilities are viewed.

More than half (55 percent) of respondents in recent research conducted by Corporate Secretary say that in the past 12 months, investors have asked questions about their board’s governance structure and processes around ESG issues. Full details of the research can be found here.

A key aspect of tackling ESG issues is communicating with shareholders – and increasingly an array of other stakeholders – about a company’s position. The forum will feature advice on aligning an issuer’s ESG story with its equity story and building an effective ESG narrative more generally. That increasingly includes how companies address contentious political and social matters.

Sharing their insight on these and other topics will be speakers from in-house governance roles and organizations such as MSCI, CFA Institute, Clifford Chance, Nuveen and SOC Investment Group. In addition to hearing from panelists, attendees will have opportunities to discuss some of the top issues directly with peers in roundtable formats.
 

ESG AWARD WINNERS TO BE REVEALED
The winners of the inaugural ESG Integration Awards will be announced at the end of the day’s forum. The awards recognize outstanding achievements by governance and IR professionals in helping their companies oversee, communicate and engage with stakeholders about their company’s ESG efforts.

Submissions have been made for a variety of issuers and individuals for their work in areas such as board oversight of ESG, climate action, ESG engagement programs and diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I). These submissions highlight the extensive and excellent work being done in the field.

The nominees are:
 
Best board oversight of ESG
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Horace Mann
Marsh McLennan
NRG Energy
Starbucks Corporation

Best climate action
Amalgamated Financial Corp
JLL
Medtronic
Philip Morris International
Starbucks Corporation

Best DE&I
Advance Auto Parts
Gilead Sciences
Medtronic
Paramount Global
Starbucks Corporation

Best ESG by a senior management team
Energy Recovery
JLL
Paramount Global
PepsiCo
The Travelers Companies

Best ESG communications
Chesapeake Energy Corporation
elf Beauty
Energy Recovery
PepsiCo
Philip Morris International

Best ESG engagement program
Energy Recovery
Splunk
Starbucks Corporation
The Travelers Companies

The prestigious members of the judging panel for this year’s awards are:

• Mary Green, vice president and client portfolio manager, Federated Hermes
• Eileen Kamerick, non-executive director at ACV Auctions, Associated Banc-Corp, Hochschild Mining and Legg Mason Closed End Funds
• Michael Passoff, CEO, Proxy Impact
• Veena Ramani, research director, FCLTGlobal
• Tensie Whelan, founder and director, NYU Stern School of Business’ Center for Sustainable Business.