2Sustain

Consumers are increasingly focused on corporations’ sustainability practices. But, how well do public perceptions align with firms’ actual performance on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues?

New research suggests that there isn’t much alignment, at all, and that, unfortunately, many companies are facing reputational risk if they don’t better coordinate their branding, communications, reporting and stakeholder engagement processes around emerging ESG priorities.

The new study, Sustainability Research Report: Measuring Perception vs. Reality, provides a quantitative analysis of sustainability and corporate citizenship performance of 100 leading multinationals.

Conducted by the brand consulting firm Brandlogic and CRD Analytics, the study surveyed 2400 supply chain managers, investment professionals and graduating college students from the US and abroad about their perceptions of the multinationals’ ESG efforts. Then, researchers compared those perceptions against the performance data from 175 performance metrics and five key ESG performance indicators.

Data from the study showed that: (more…)

Two powerhouses in the field of corporate sustainability –the United Nations Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) – have announced an agreement to align their work in advancing corporate responsibility and transparency.

With this new collaboration, the organizations will be able to further develop their combined strengths – the Global Compact’s strategic advancement of key sustainability issues, and GRI’s reporting framework.

Under the terms of the new agreement: (more…)

In today’s global economy, it’s not enough for companies to perform only financially; they’re expected to be good corporate citizens, as well. Stakeholders are holding firms accountable with regard to social and environmental performance, and as a result, corporate sustainability reporting has become a mainstream business activity. What do I mean by “mainstream”? Consider this: last year, a survey by KPMG reported that nearly 80% of the largest 250 companies worldwide issued CSR reports.

As you would expect, investors have been a key driver in the trend towards improved disclosure of economic, social, and governance (ESG) performance. So, it only makes sense that companies today are eager to learn how to reach out to investors through sustainability reporting. In the best case scenario, ECG performance is correlated with a company’s overall business strategy, so that investors can clearly see how sustainability is linked to the financial bottom line. That sounds like a reasonable approach, I know. But since a CSR report contains information on multiple moving parts, it can be difficult to put even the most reasonable approach into actual practice.

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