Investing in Society is the authoritative source to assess the corporate sector’s progress toward being increasingly purpose and stakeholder driven. CECP’s assessment combines rigorous analysis with research, trends, and cases from the ESG landscape, examined through the lens of CECP’s engagements with more than 200 of the world’s leading companies. Investing in Society organizes its insights as a company might in its own scorecard: Priorities, Performance, People, Planet, and Policies (the five “Ps” framework). Investing in Society is the must-read digest for the state of corporate purpose.
New this year!
Past editions of Investing in Society have demonstrated how companies have pivoted their strategies to address the needs of all stakeholders, including employees, customers, communities, suppliers, and investors. In keeping with past years’ five “Ps” framework, this report adds a new assessment of the state of corporate purpose. This year’s edition takes the release to the next level with brand new ESG Factor Analysis. The analysis explores the degree to which financial and ESG metrics are correlated with each other and grouped into factors with common attributes and changes within the five “Ps” framework. For instance, is the Percentage of Women in the Workforce a better predictor of social improvement or better corporate governance? Each section of the report will show the reader which metrics were grouped more strongly into each ESG factor and will also provide an indicator of the corporate sector’s performance on those factors overall. Your company can use these findings to explore which actions have more importance under each ESG factor and may need more engagement and public disclosure.
Preview of Key Findings
The analysis showed that, particularly, the lack of disclosure on many social and governance metrics hinders a better understanding of the importance and correlation of those metrics with each ESG pillar. Here is a sneak peek at the insights:
- People factor: 45% of companies in fiscal year 2019 showed positive change on the People factor. In technical terms, these companies’ values showed greater weight and correlation with diversity, as opposed to companies with Factor Scores less than zero.
- Planet factor: 69% of companies in fiscal year 2019 showed positive progress on the Planet factor. In technical terms, these companies had a positive impact on a composite environmental factor that includes variables such as Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Energy Consumption, Electricity Used, and ESG Disclosure Score.
- Policies factor: 56% of companies in fiscal year 2019 showed positive progress on the Policies factor. In technical terms, these companies’ values showed a greater weight and correlation with practices that improve compensation transparency and accountability among large corporations. For more information on Factor Scores please see CECP’s ESG Factor Analysis.
This highly anticipated release which will come out this April highlights the issues that are top of mind for corporate leaders and their teams, and areas of consideration for companies looking to the future. This year’s report also analyzes the latest trends on ESG metrics for companies in the Fortune 500 ®, summarizing these findings through three tools woven throughout Investing in Society: CECP’s ESG Factor Analysis, Stakeholder Scorecard, and CECP’s Thought Leadership and sector-wide literature review.
Bookmark Investing in Society
Investing in Society explores these five areas and delves into bringing more consensus regarding the assessment of Corporate Purpose. CECP hopes you are encouraged and informed by these insights and welcomes your feedback (info@cecp.co). Join us in celebrating the publication of the 2021 edition of Investing in Society! Bookmark the page and check back as updates will be added. The 2021 pdf version of Investing in Society will be finalized in the spring of 2021 and will be accompanied with a webinar to present the most interesting findings of this year’s report. Share anecdotes with CECP regarding why you think your company’s purpose statement takes into account stakeholders other than investors.
Have you read Investing in Society? Tell us what you think, we’d love to hear your feedback!