Today marks the 20th anniversary of the first public appearance of ESG in the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) whitepaper “Who Cares Wins.”
My favorite part of the paper is this
“Throughout this report we have refrained from using terms such as sustainability, corporate citizenship, etc., in order to avoid misunderstandings deriving from different interpretations of these terms.”
While born out of the financial markets perspective, and even with this prescient intent, ESG today is conflated with these other terms and aligned with scoring mechanisms and disclosures in the minds of many.
ESG affords a path to long-term value for companies that are willing to understand its nuance and relevance to their business.
Today, of all days, is a good time to point out a core theme of my book, ESG Mindset:
“It is time for businesses to take control of ESG, decide their material pursuits and where to drive impact, and communicate intent and progress back to the financial markets rather than trying to hit the moving target of investors’ needs.”
This article was written by Matthew Sekol
