在过去的两年中，我一直在为一件事挠头:美国人已经明确表示他们想从好的公司购买。当你问他们什么是好的，谁是好的时候，他们给出的答案是“对地球有好处”和“对人们有好处”。

然而，美国企业坚持要把这两者分开。可持续发必威体育2018展团队独自生活在一个岛上，或者可能在EHS部门，负责环境合规和减少环境影响——基本上做得不那么坏。与此同时，负责企业社会责任的人住在另一个部门，通常是人力资源部门，负责传播善——社区项目、慈善事业、多样性和包容性。

这种分离并不好。这意味着重复的努力和相互竞争的信息。在一个案例中，我们看到一个大胆的公司承诺在一年多的时间里陷入困境，因为它既包括环境影响，也包括社会影响，而这两个独立的部门很难决定谁应该“拥有”它。

这一切都与环境，社会和治理（ESG）为框架，这是一件好事变化。

或者至少，一切都应该改变。原因如下:

1.这只是时间问题

If you work in communications or sustainability at a publicly traded company, somebody on your executive team or your board will come to you very soon, if they haven’t already, and say, "Why is our (fill in the blank with the name of the rating agency here) score so low?" This is often, in my experience, how ESG gets on Corporate America’s radar. An investor or board member brings up one of the company’s ESG scores or a ratings agency reaches out to the right senior leader and starts asking lots of questions the leader can’t answer. Bottom line: As much as some companies are driven by purpose, all companies are driven by profitability. And when Wall Street starts asking questions they can’t answer, they move quickly to rectify that.

2.简化消息传递是有意义的

有几十个ESG评级机构在那里。(I’ve seen the number put at 100-plus, but five to 10 "usual suspects" come up in conversations I have with senior company leaders including ISS, Sustainalytics, CDP, Bloomberg, RobecoSAM and MSCI.) I concur with the lamenting of folks who deal with these: It’s a lot to manage. They all ask different questions/are looking for different things, and one could spend half or more of their work time responding to and managing the ESG ratings process. The thing is, ESG ratings are about companies being good across the board (on ESG indices), much as Americans already are wired. So if you’re the sustainability person, you have to work with the CSR person and somebody in corporate governance (legal and/or accounting) to get the questionnaires answered. Better for that to all be streamlined in one department for sheer ease rather than scattered throughout an organization.

3.这不是一个复选框练习

这不仅仅是“游戏化”ESG评分，这似乎是高管们经常看到的。公司不应该把ESG评分看作是他们“处理”的复选框练习。They should look at it as a framework through which to manage climate risk and financial risk — a tool to steer the company to profitability. That’s why Wall Street is increasingly interested in ESG. It’s about money. Companies that have no idea what will happen to their supply chains and human capital when the waters rise will be caught off guard and unable to stay profitable through climate events. Companies that are aware of their risks and shifting and managing their organizations, as a result, are better investments.

这对我来说是最重要的，因为我刚刚参加了GreenBiz 20会议本月早些时候。ESG被提过很多次，多样性和包容性(D&I)也被提过很多次。我的结论是，公司需要进行重组，使可持续性、社会公益(包括D&I)和治理都在同一个部门，由同一个高级领导领必威体育2018导。这个领导者需要使用ESG的评级、排名和报告工具，作为管理其气候风险的框架，并推动其公司在一个气候适应性强的世界中实现盈利。