Getting your business’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) proposition and message right is critical as it has become an integral part of how business is increasingly being done, including its use by underwriters as a risk selection tool.

ESG impacts business performance and research has shown that companies that focus on ESG concerns experience higher equity returns and better performance.^[1]

What’s included in ESG?

Environmental

Climate change

Energy efficiency

Waste management

Social

Diversity and inclusion

Fair pay

Human rights

Governance

Board composition

Compliance

Succession planning

ESG is here to stay, yet some companies can have a hard time figuring out what ESG means. They want a simple checklist to follow, but it’s more than that. It’s about determining what issues are material for your own company and industry. ESG myths and misperceptions also remain and must be debunked to help business fully embrace it's full impact:^[2]

Myth #1: ESG strategy can easily be replicated

Actually, an ESG strategy isn’t something that can be replicated from peers. ESG can look very different for each business, and your ESG program will be unique to your business’s own facts and circumstances. While there are general guidelines across specific industries, it is up to each individual organization to run its business in a different way that brings value to stakeholders, customers, employees and investors.

An ESG strategy isn’t something that can be replicated from peers. ESG can look very different for each business, and your ESG program will be unique to your business’s own facts and circumstances.

Myth #2: During a crisis, ESG should give way to profitability

The perception is that when the financial chips are down, companies and shareholders care only about profitability. ESG actually becomes increasingly important in any type of downturn. Crises like the global pandemic often highlight where nonfinancial risks exist within companies and how damaging they can be to the bottom line. For instance, public companies may find that their human-capital decisions in response to COVID-19 have an impact on the way shareholders vote and engage.

Myth #3: ESG is more about the ‘E’

Many companies have grown comfortable with governance – the “G.” Increasingly, the environmental “E” in ESG is getting more media and shareholder attention – particularly in the face of growing concern about climate change. As companies dealt with COVID-19, the social considerations of ESG – the “S” – also came to the fore.^[3]

How companies deal with employees, engage with customers and manage supply chains are all areas that fall under ESG. For example, the COVID-19 outbreak underscored the value of having a robust remote-working infrastructure, including strong networks and cybersecurity practices in place when the crisis hit. For companies that had to develop those capabilities on the fly, this lack of ESG planning proved problematic.^[4]

How companies deal with employees, engage with customers and manage supply chains are all areas that fall under ESG.

Myth #4: ESG is about being a nice company

It is important that companies distinguish between the things that can have a real positive – or negative – impact on their business.

As important as charitable activity and volunteerism might be, that work isn’t necessarily focused on mitigating business risks. For example, employees reading to disadvantaged students to increase literacy is a worthy cause. But for a company facing challenges with diversity in its workforce, ESG activities with a potentially greater impact might include building recruitment relationships with women and minority students in high schools and colleges and building a more inclusive corporate culture.^[5]

Myth #5: ESG is all about profitability for investors

ESG practices can certainly yield stronger company performance and studies have proven that.^[6] But shareholders aren’t the only benefactors. ESG is critical to business resilience. Further, integrating ESG in Enterprise Risk Management will improve the consistency and cohesiveness of sustainability-related risk management. ^[7] It’s about creating a sustainable and resilient business over time that takes into consideration risks not easily identified in a spreadsheet, so employees have jobs and customers get products and services. What’s more, sustainable companies are where people want to work.^[8]

^{[1-2] Five ways that ESG creates value}

^{[3] ESG in the Time of COVID-19} 

^{[4] [8] COVID-19 and the Rising Importance of the ‘S’ in ESG}

^{[5] Why the ESG Spotlight Should be on Diversity and Inclusion in 2021}

^{[6] Research Finds ESG Activities Drive Better Financial Performance}

^{[7] Why integrating ESG into your business could be the key to its resilience}

^{[8] Why ESG is Even More Important in a Crisis Like COVID-19}