Posts Tagged ‘ESG’
Planning Your ESG Reporting Structure
I spent last week attending the annual user conference for Workiva, maker of software for audit and compliance reporting. Challenges around ESG reporting were all over the agenda, which lets us review some of the more nettlesome issues involved — and just in time, too, since both Europe and the United States are stepping up…
Read MoreThoughts on Developing an ESG Program
Today I want to circle back to that KPMG survey of compliance officers that the firm released two weeks ago. We have another issue in that report worth our attention: corporations’ efforts to stand up ESG programs, and the role that compliance officers might play. The report, which surveyed 240 chief compliance officers at large…
Read MoreThe Rise of ESG Controller Jobs
Back in January I flagged the rise of “ESG controller” jobs as one of the corporate compliance events to watch in 2023. Today I want to unpack that idea a bit more, to understand what these jobs entail, whether corporations really are trying to fill them, and what sort of person might be qualified to…
Read MoreA 10-K Disclosure First: ‘Anti-ESG’
Congratulations to the Carlyle Group, which apparently is the first company ever to disclose in an SEC filing that conservatives’ displeasure with corporate ESG efforts is a material risk to corporate performance. Carlyle, a publicly traded investment company with more than $370 billion in assets under management, included “anti-ESG sentiment” as a risk factor in…
Read MoreThoughts on ESG Controls & Reporting
I spent several days last week attending the annual user conference for Workiva, maker of audit and risk management software. ESG was all over the agenda, with numerous speakers talking about how to integrate ESG concerns into your annual audit and reporting. I took detailed notes, and my recap is below. First, I was struck…
Read MoreTwo Reports on Building an ESG Program
ESG issues seem to be a hot issue this week, with two groups publishing reports meant to help companies understand what a good ESG function should be able to do — including how to police against ESG fraud. Let’s start with the report on ESG reporting, published by Workiva. Workvia polled more than 1,300 corporate…
Read MoreSEC Sues Vale on Dam Disaster
The Securities and Exchange Commission is bringing charges against Brazilian mining company Vale, accusing the company of misleading investors for years about the safety of dams it built and managed in Brazil, until the Brumadinho dam collapsed in 2019 and killed 270 people in one of the worst mining disasters in history. The SEC filed…
Read MoreMore ESG: Who Owns This Function?
The Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics hosted its 2021 annual conference last week, and the agenda addressed all sorts of topics relevant to corporate compliance professionals. Everywhere you turned, however, one question seemed to worm its way into the conversation. Should the compliance function also own ESG reporting? Some people are an emphatic “no.”…
Read MoreESG and Supply Chain Transparency
A report released this week demonstrates the challenges ahead as large companies try to stand up ESG programs that include their often vast supply chains, since many small suppliers are still struggling to stand up their own ESG efforts that you larger players can rely upon. The report comes from ISN, which acts as a…
Read MoreSEC Commish Talks ESG, Board Governance
SEC commissioner Allison Herren Lee delivered a speech Monday forcefully laying out the need for corporate boards to take ESG risks and disclosures seriously, presumably as a prelude to whatever enhanced ESG disclosure rules the Securities and Exchange Commission will adopt sometime later this year. Lee, who has spoken about ESG issues numerous times and…
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