The future of ESG as a “standard business requirement”
ESG is here and there’s no turning back, says Julie Iskow, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Workiva, in a recent Forbes piece sharing her thoughts on the future of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting. She holds that “trusted, transparent data reporting and proof of forward-looking ESG-based business goals are exactly what the new generation of socially conscious stakeholders want,” discussing the results of a Workiva-commissioned survey of individual investors in France, Germany, the UK and the US. In one interesting finding, for example, a third of US respondents stated that ESG data was just as important as financial performance in influencing their investment-related decisions.
“My prediction is that ESG metrics will evolve from an annual necessity into critical, auditable operational intelligence that’s used for ongoing business management and strategic decision-making. Embracing easier ESG reporting is the first step toward better stewardship of our planet for decades to come,” she says.
Our take? Julie’s piece is worth reading. Not least for the points made from the survey about the rapid generational shifts within the ranks of investors. Generational changes that come with a shift in attitude towards the long term risks and rewards that companies need to balance.
Read more here.
