Primary responsibility for ESG communications rests with a dedicated sustainability team at more than a third of companies polled, while responsibility lies with corporate communications at a further 28 percent. Regionally, the practice of the sustainability team having primary responsibility for ESG communications is most prevalent in Asia, with 41 percent doing so. In Europe it is more common for corporate communications to take the lead, with 39 percent of firms assigning primary responsibility to this department. ESG communications responsibility changes according to company size: just 16 percent of small-cap companies have a dedicated sustainability team responsible for ESG communications. This rises steeply as company size increases to the point where almost three quarters of mega-cap companies give responsibility to the sustainability team. At the same time, corporate communications responsibility for ESG communications drops from 42 percent among small-cap companies to 16 percent at mega-caps.
Who has primary responsibility for your company’s ESG communications?
What kind of ESG reporting do you conduct?
Having a separate sustainability report is the most common means of ESG reporting. Overall, 38 percent of companies report in this way, compared with 34 percent that integrate their ESG reporting into their annual report. More than a fifth (22 percent) of companies do not formally report on ESG issues.
