Nasdaq said the state of sustainability and environmental, social, and governance this year can be summed up in two words – progress and confusion.
Less than half of public companies provide climate- related disclosures aligned
with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, International Sustainability
Standards Board’s sustainability and climate-related standards, and the U.S.
Security and Exchange Commission’s climate-related proposed rules. Nasdaq’s IR
Intelligence team said in a report, The State of Sustainability and ESG in 2023, that
only 44% of the 7,200 companies analysed provided these disclosures as at
November 2023.
Companies in certain sectors, such as utilities and energy, provide more disclosures
in comparison to other sectors, such as healthcare and technology.
Michael Stiller, New Initiatives, Nasdaq IR Intelligence and Viktor Aghajanyan, ESG R&D
Engineer, Nasdaq IR Intelligence, said in the report, “Our view is that this could be
attributed to the long-standing climate reporting by many companies in the energy
and utilities space.”
The research found that 69% of utilities companies in the sample provided
disclosures, followed by energy companies at 63% and basic materials companies
at 62%. The lowest levels of disclosure were from companies in healthcare, 41%,
and technology, 51%.
The IR Intelligence team used the Nasdaq Sustainable Lens platform to analyse
ESG reports and financial filings from approximately 7,200 publicly-traded
companies across 75 countries and 59 industries over the past three years.
The team also used artificial intelligence and internal subject matter experts to analyse
approximately 1,600 pages of regulatory text to find common disclosure
requirements.
The analysts concluded that 2023 will be seen as the year that the disclosure
blueprint was drafted.
“Our analysis of the proposed and final rules and regulations documents suggests
that climate is the one area in which regulators are generally aligned – 45% of the
final and proposed rules and regulation that we reviewed are climate-focused,” said
the report.
It added, “Climate has emerged as a global priority; however, our research shows that there could be an increased focus on social and non-climate environmental
disclosures in the coming years.”
© Markets Media Europe 2023
