This new report: "ESG & Investor Engagement" (Nasdaq/Corporate Secretary/IR magazine) reveals an abundance of benchmarking data on companies' ESG-related reporting and investor engagement from various perspectives - IR practitioners, investors, and corporate governance professionals.
Key takeaways from corporate governance professionals (109 respondents) include:
- Across all company sizes, sustainability teams most commonly (28%) have primary responsibility for the company's communications. Looking solely at large-caps and mega-caps (>$5 billion market cap), sustainability teams have primary responsibility at 43% of companies, compared to just 10% at small and mid-caps - presumably because small and mid-caps are much less likely to have dedicated sustainability teams.
- 36% of governance professionals say the corporate secretary or GC has primary responsibility for ESG communications.
- At larger companies, the most common type of direct interaction on ESG issues for governance professionals is a conference call, whereas 44% of small and mid-cap respondents had no direct ESG-focused interactions over the past 12 months.
- Almost half of governance respondents at larger companies have talked about Environmental policy issues with investors at least quarterly over the past year, compared to about 24% of small and mid-cap companies.
- In comparison, 67% percent of governance professionals at small and mid-cap companies have talked about Governance issues with investors at least quarterly over the past year, compared to 55% of larger companies.
- Governance professionals are responding to more than seven information requests or questionnaires from ESG rating agencies/index providers each year.
See the key findings on page 6, and numerous additional benchmarking data and other resources on our ESG page. This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!