What are the new ESG Champion Awards?
An ESG Champion is a company whose operation and output demonstrate a cultural as well as practical commitment and innovation in pursuit of ESG goals and disclosure.
The new ESG Champion Awards set out to expand the focus of CEEQA’s longstanding Green Leadership Awards for environmental sustainability, to also evaluate responsible and sustainable social commitment and corporate governance with reference to international ESG framework standard.
Environmental criteria consider how a company safeguards the environment through recycling, waste, resource management, production and supply chains including corporate policies addressing climate change, for example. Social criteria examine how it manages relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where it operates. Governance deals with a company’s leadership, executive pay, audits, internal controls, and shareholder rights.
The new ESG Champion Awards have been developed in partnership with, and are sponsored by, global consulting firm PwC.
Read more and submit entry form >>
Final extended entry deadline 18 April
What is ESG investing?
ESG is a framework that helps investors and other stakeholders understand how an organisation is managing risks and opportunities related to environmental, social, and governance criteria (sometimes called ESG factors).
ESG disclosure and compliance lays out the standards and responsibilities of an organisation, to meet the environmental, social, and governance needs appropriate to a business, which is communicated with ESG reporting. There is mounting pressure on businesses to follow robust ESG frameworks and standards.
Where did ESG come from?
The practice of ESG investing began as socially responsible investing as far back at the 1960s, investors independently becoming more selective of the kinds of companies or entire industries in their portfolios based on socially harmful activities such as tobacco production or involvement in the South African apartheid regime. By the 2000s the emphasis began to include environmental and climate change impacts.
The term ESG was first coined in 2005 in a landmark study commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme Initiative entitled “Who Cares Wins.” ESG driven investment accelerated around 2013 and 2014 when the first studies were published showing that good corporate sustainability performance is associated with good financial results.
The growth of ESG investing accelerated around 2013 and 2014 as studies increasingly demonstrated good corporate sustainability performance translates into good financial results and risk management, paving the way for governments to formally adopt ESG as a spearhead for wider commitment to environmental and social responsibility and sustainability, governance safeguards and transparency of reporting, as an trackable and enforceable statutory and business standard, including statutory
More recently, government directives such as the International Integrated Reporting Initiative (IIRC) in the US and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) in the EU have stepped up statutory pressure through private sector investment and finance as well as corporate disclosure, with compliance deadlines varying 2024-2027.
Today, 80% of the world’s largest corporations are committed to ESG standards and compliance due to rising statutory and conscience pressures throughout a company’s operations, culture.