What is in the report?
Interest in and discussion of ESG is a hot topic for investors and corporations. Governance reporting is well established, both in terms of expectations and firms' disclosures. But is this the case when it comes to environmental and social issues? A central tenet of investor relations is owning and managing a company’s equity story. Increasingly E&S issues have an influence on this, as do the variety of E&S data providers that combine analysis of issuers’ disclosures with proprietary research to present a picture of companies’ performance.
In this report, we examine the regional and cap size differences in relation to reporting on E&S issues, as well as investors’ thoughts about the quality of the ESG data available to them. We begin by examining the opinions of investors on the importance of ESG metrics, preferred E&S data sources, which E&S data providers they subscribe to and which E&S metrics they consider important. The report then looks at IR professionals’ opinions on reporting on E&S issues, engagement with E&S data providers and the accuracy of E&S data providers, as well as the number of completed E&S questionnaires and conversations they cover. Finally, we compare the opinions of investors and IR professionals on a regional basis.
Data in this report is taken from IR Magazine’s Global IR Survey of the investment community in Q4 2019 and from our Q1 2020 biannual survey of IR professionals around the world.
For the purposes of this report, the following cap size definitions are used:
Editor Paul Crooke Chief copy editor Kathleen Hennessy Art and design James Noden
Introduction Investor views IRO views Regional breakdown
