ESG in the C-suite survey

This week I want to flag EY’s recently published paper “C-suite insights: Sustainability and ESG trends“. It is based on a survey of more than 500 executives from Fortune 1000 companies across industries with revenues of US$1.5 billion or more. Here are what we feel are the survey’s top 5 findings, but if you want to learn more, we highly recommend reading the whole thing (it is not that long):

1. “ESG is still very much in the sights of American executives and at the top of every agenda.”
2. “As many as 82% of surveyed leaders confirm their organizations have both carbon emissions reductions initiatives in place and goals to reach net zero by a given year.”
3. “Fifty-four percent of leaders now see environmental issues, and 52% view technology, as emerging sustainability and ESG risks.”
4. “81% of survey respondents say they have a CSO or equivalent position within their leadership hierarchy…over a third of those CSOs have a direct line of reporting to the CEO…”
5. “…nine out of 10 executives reporting board oversight of their organizations’ sustainability and ESG agendas…”

It is nice to see that despite the topic being so politicized in the US, corporations continue to adopt and strengthen their sustainability efforts (which is possibly due to investors keeping their eye on the ball). As can be seen, the adoption numbers are quite high overall. Naturally the surveyed executives come from relatively big companies, but this possibly flows to smaller companies too.

In Mexico we continue to see increased interest from companies on getting their sustainability strategies right. And we would expect that as long as the funding side of the equation is still concerned with ESG topics (both investors and lenders), this will continue to be the case.

I hope you found this interesting. As usual, if there is anything we can help you with, or if there is an ESG topic you would like to know more about, please let us know.

Best,

Marimar

CEO, Miranda ESG

P.S. This past week the Mexican tax authorities published an extremely detailed taxonomy for sustainable finance in Mexico. It remains to be seen how this taxonomy will be integrated in to the system, but if you want to take a peek to see what is being done locally, you can find it here. Our view is that it is positive to see that there is at least some interest to boost sustainable finance in the country, but that without more surrounding efforts to promote it the taxonomy will be hard to integrate since it is highly technical and quite widespread (which makes sense, but that is why accompanying efforts are required).