KPMG (Spring 2024) - MGTO 30300 — Business Problem Solving (Harms/Balko) - Library Guides at University of Notre Dame

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Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) is a growing concept which emphasizes investment in companies based on their impact in a variety of environmental, social, and governance factors. It is often applied to companies in the form of a scoring system based on company disclosures on topics relating to climate impact, stances and contributions to social issues, and general governance or management practices of a company.

In certain spheres, ESG scores are being model as an indicator of risk when attracting investors. Resources below will give more information on ESG as a concept.

Recommended Resources

Sustainable: Moving Beyond ESG to Impact Investing
A book providing a general overview of ESG, it's practices, some of its benefits, and some of its pitfalls.
Deloitte ESG Collection
A small collection of articles published by Deloitte on a variety of current ESG topics.
Accenture Sustainability Insight Articles
A series of articles published by Accenture covering sustainability topics which overlap with ESG. There are multiple articles on strategizing for sustainable investment that are worth taking a look at.
ESG Today
A newer trade publication reporting on ESG developments in the news. As a trade publication, it is generally reporting from a business perspective.
SEC Environmental, Social and Governance
SEC page defining ESG and providing access to resources related to ESG for investment transparency purposes.
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Provides a series of development goals for countries across the world which is often cited as an influence on ESG trends and methodologies.

When looking for information to construct an ESG strategy, there are a few methods that could potentially help influence your own recommendations. Try some of the following:

Identify a company that is similar to your's which has successfully implemented an ESG strategy. See if their company or investor sites outline the strategy and use it as a case example to inform your own strategy.
Many major consulting firms published frameworks, standards, or strategies for ESG that you may be able find with some clever searching. A few options are outlined in the recommended resources.
Search literature from an academic perspective with some of the resources outlined below.

Recommended Resources

McKinsey ESG Framework
Provides an export framework for adopting ESG elements within a business environment.
Armanino ESG Strategy: A Program Guide for Companies
A handbook style report on the importance of an ESG strategy and how to build one.
Motley Fool: How to Develop an ESG Strategy
Another published article providing recommendations for the development of an ESG strategy.
EY: Three ways to directly tie ESG strategy to corporate strategy
Report from EY which provides insight into ESG strategy from a higher corporate perspective.
Harvard Business Review: Startups Need an ESG Strategy
HBR article reporting on the importance of an ESG strategy for startups. While it's focused in the context of startups, many takeaways can likely apply to mid sized to larger companies as well.
ABI/INFORM Global
Try searching with search strings such as ESG AND strategy, ESG AND investment, ESG AND marketing, ESG AND audit* to start. It may be beneficial to use filters on the left hand side after doing a search to filter content by academic journals, trade publications, or further subject areas to see further direct your results.
Business Source Complete
An overall similar strategy as with ABI/INFORM above. Generally Business Source Complete draws fewer trade publication titles which will influence your results slightly.

There are multiple ESG scoring providers which rate companies, similar to a credit rating, based on their ESG disclosures. ESG scores can be useful in understanding ESG better as well as identifying high performing ESG companies. If you can identify a few high ESG performers, search the company via Google to see if they have any public facing ESG strategy or commitment information. ESG scoring methodologies have even been applied to countries and regions based off of similar metrics.

ESG evaluators have been known to have inconsistencies in their scoring methodologies. There is no central ESG scoring agency, and it is instead a system done by multiple companies that often do not share data among each other. It is not uncommon to find different scores for the same company across scoring platforms.

You may find that depending on what the company produces or sells, they may focus their strategies on aspects within E S or G to different degrees. This may be important as you may want to pick a specific pillar of ESG for your case recommendations to focus on.

Recommended Resources

CSRHub ESG Ratings
Searchable by company names with the large search bar at the top of the screen. Provides a very basic composite scoring for companies in the broadest ESG pillars.
MSCI Ratings & Climate Search Tool
Provides access to an ESG scorecard summary of companies evaluated by MSCI. MSCI is a more long standing ESG evaluator.
Standard & Poor ESG Ratings
Provides preview results of ESG scores searchable by company for the S&P scoring system. Also provides a lot of background information on the ESG data environment.
Sustainalytics Company Search
Provides a very basic composite ESG score for companies.

MGTO 30300 — Business Problem Solving (Harms/Balko)

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