The Wall Street Journal reported on the results of a recent collaborative survey with the NACD of 506 public, private, and not-for-profit board members of companies across industry sectors regarding sustainability practices and views.
Key takeaways include:
Use of outside advisors—Over two-thirds of respondents said their boards engaged outside advisors within the past 12 months to assist with their ESG oversight responsibilities. Of those, nearly 45% of advisors brought subject matter expertise; 41% provided education and training; and 37% provided research and analysis.
ESG strategy influencers—Public company respondents cited investors as the most influential stakeholders in the board’s ESG strategy decision making, followed by regulators, whereas private company respondents identified customers as most influential, followed by investors.
Anti-ESG—In response to the anti-ESG movement, 7% of companies represented by respondents no longer publicly communicate about their ESG activities and 14% no longer use the term “ESG.”
Other changes (which are not clearly linked in the report to the anti-ESG movement as opposed to, e.g., the organic evolution of ESG) include reassessing the company’s ESG approach (20%) and deprioritizing ESG as a critical business issue (12%). Notably, according to the report, 15% of respondents (concentrated at smaller, private companies) said they “believe ESG is negatively affecting their business decisions and strategy.”
Climate change—Climate is a priority for most respondent companies, but not at the expense of financial performance. While almost 20% of respondents’ companies prioritize climate change mitigation regardless of financial performance, nearly half prioritize it subject to financial performance, and one-third don’t prioritize it at all.