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Tracking ESG metrics The Harvard Business Review just published an article entitled, How Tracking ESG Metrics Can Help Reduce Costs and Build...

from Roy Snell When Did Earth Day Start? April 22nd, 1970 Who Started Earth Day? U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin who was...

It is an exciting time to be working on life sciences ESG programs My first job out of college in 1980, was to manage new microcomputers that were...

Blog by Roy Snell, Image "chat bot typing an article" generated by picfinder.ai I asked ChatGPT for a paragraph on what an ESG program is. It gave...

By Roy Snell Compliance and ESG professionals need to ensure AI authoring policies are written. Such as my new policy… “All AI text that I include...

EcoVadis is the 1 billion pound gorilla in the Environmental Social Governance (ESG) ratings world. EcoVadis has many companies in a bind because...

By Roy Snell Before I start, I want to clarify a point.  It is my belief that ESG has been around for 100 years.  Some claim that the earliest...

The US government is considering blocking Lithium mining In Nevada because of a flower called Tiehm’s buckwheat.  The flower is found nowhere else...

by Roy Snell Reefer Madness, SCCE, The IIA, Musk, DeSantis, and Jane Fonda There was a movie that was shown in schools, a long time ago, called...

Sam Bankman-Fried just lost his job as CEO of FTX because he allegedly lost billions of dollars.  The real problem is that it was his investor’s...

So today I went fishing for ESG post ideas on Twitter and as is often the case… I hit the jackpot in seconds. The first thing that showed up on my...

I was asked a question by a long-time compliance colleague, Andra Popa, “Can you look at ESG as an equation?” I answered the question on a post for...

by Roy Snell I am going to go live in a shack in the woods of Northwest Ontario if I hear one more investment advisor, activist, or an “I hate ESG...

From Roy Snell Andra Popa and I have been exchanging ideas in the field of compliance for years.  I asked her to send me some questions about ESG. ...

By Roy Snell Lucy Pérez, Vivian Hunt, Hamid Samandari, Robin Nuttall, and Krysta Biniek have written an excellent article on ESG for McKinsey.  You...

From Roy Snell You may or may not be involved in the hiring of your organization’s 1st ESG Officer, but you will probably be involved in the hiring...

From Roy Snell My daughter, Jessica (see picture) was and still is our first child. She is now about 30 and married to a wonderful guy named Colin....

The current implementation of Environmental, Social and Governance programs mirrors the implementation of compliance programs in the late 1990s. ...

Elon Musk hates the Environmental, Social and Governance discussion. He says “ESG is a scam. It's been weaponized by phony social justice warriors."...

By Roy Snell: I Forgot to Mention Private Equity’s Interest in ESG The PE folks are telling us ESG adds value to an organization. I wrote a list of...

The Securities Exchange Commission has been assuring the public that Environmental, Social and Governance reporting enforcement is coming and that...

By Roy Snell The key to getting others motivated about ESG is to understand what motivates them. Some of us know our leadership so well that we will...

By Roy Snell The Russian and Ukrainian war is impacting ESG professionals. One of my colleagues had a difficult discussion with their CEO about...

By Roy Snell A couple of the primary Environmental Social and Governance rating agencies are Sustainalytics...

By Roy Snell Most people associate solar and wind stocks with environment, social, and governance (ESG) related exchange traded funds (ETF).  Most...

By Roy Snell I am an advisor for Osprey ESG Software.  I may be biased, but I personally know all the people who do our ESG consulting, and I have...

By Roy Snell I have been ranting endlessly that ESG is more than an annual report.  I have said repeatedly that we have to go past all the screaming...

By Roy Snell When I got involved in Environmental, Social and Governance programs I was very excited and ran...

By Bridge Taylor, CPA, FSA An ESG program, much like traditional financial reporting, requires transparency and assurance to be decision-useful for...

By Roy Snell

Douglas Adams, a rather humorous brit, wrote a book called the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  The main character Arthur, hitchhikes through space, meeting many characters who are trying to find meaning in their lives. Aren’t we all?  Coincidently there are many characters in the Environmental, Social, and Governance movement trying to find meaning in their lives.  If you enter the ESG craze, you will meet these “ESG people.”  Some of these people are a bit terrifying, so the more you know about who they are and what they want, the easier it will be to work with them.

By Roy Snell

I am really surprised how few people talk about implementing an ESG program to prevent, find and fix ESG related problems or improving your organization’s ESG metrics.  If you want an example of what I am talking about, go read the first paragraph on Wikipedia under the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance section.  At the time of this writing, there was not a single sentence suggesting that you should look for ESG problems or how to look for them.  It doesn’t talk about improving your current ESG metrics.  I attended a few sessions of an ESG conference coordinated by a major player in the financial journalism field and did not hear any discussion about how to set up an ESG program. 

By Bridge Taylor

This week I wanted to talk about the “why” of ESG. I’m nervous when ESG programs start at the behest of external stakeholders (investors, regulators, boards, etc.) demanding non-financial information but are not used to tell decision-useful stories. ESG can seem overwhelming, but this great new data should be used for analysis, not just box-ticking. As we look at these ESG metrics to better understand risks and opportunities in our organization that traditional accounting and risk management miss, we will fall flat on our face if we stop at data collection and never find our stories.

By Roy Snell

The benefits of an effective ESG program are significant.  The key is hiring an ESG professional who can implement a focused ESG program tied to ESG metrics (goals) relevant to your organization and industry.  An effective ESG professional will help your organization limit your ESG metrics to those that can be tracked while being fiscally responsible. Below are some of the benefits your organization might encounter by implementing a strong ESG program.  If leadership questions the value of such a program, I would consider using a subset of these benefits that are most relevant to your leadership style, industry and organizational culture.

By Roy Snell

The short answer is that it’s not. To me, with a background in financial accounting, ESG reporting is a logical extension of financial accounting, regulatory disclosure, and management’s discussion & analysis. Over the next couple of months, I’ll share my thoughts on ESG, non-financial reporting, and how to execute a successful ESG program.

By Bridge Taylor and Roy Snell

The short answer is that it’s not. To me, with a background in financial accounting, ESG reporting is a logical extension of financial accounting, regulatory disclosure, and management’s discussion & analysis. Over the next couple of months, I’ll share my thoughts on ESG, non-financial reporting, and how to execute a successful ESG program.

By Roy Snell

My father was a Vice President for Control Data, the undisputed supercomputer king at one point in time.  He used to tell stories about Seymour Cray, the greatest supercomputer architect of the period, coming to board meetings in a plaid shirt and a plaid disposition to match. One could argue that these people were at the epicenter of the digital revolution, the invention of the computer. No invention has changed the lives of humans like the computer in my humble opinion.

by Roy Snell I have hit an ESG wall.  I have been asking people some very basic questions about the ESG movement and I am not getting the right...

By Roy Snell

As is often the case with a new high-level and complex role such as the Environmental, Social, and Governance Officer, the job description is often inconsistently defined.  One of the things we can do to help make things clearer is recognizing that the ESG Officer job description will be different depending on where they work.  For example, an ESG Officer in an investment firm might focus on assessing issuers ESG ratings for investment purposes.  On the other hand, ESG Officers working in a more typical organization might focus on collecting ESG metrics relevant to their industry and reporting that information at least annually.  I will be focusing on the role of the ESG officer who manages their organization’s ESG program in this post.

By Roy Snell

When compliance programs exploded in the late 90s and early 2000s many people took credit for the idea.  The people taking credit for the growth expected to get credit, be the center of attention, and control how compliance programs evolved.  By definition they all couldn’t be the only group that invented it, but they acted as if they did.  When they didn’t get control and ownership of compliance some of them became frustrated.  One of these groups was the government.  A high ranking enforcement agent told me that if he and his department pulled their support, compliance programs and the compliance profession would come crumbling down. 

By Roy Snell

There are many similarities between the evolution of the compliance profession and the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) profession.  One of the most important lessons we could take away from the compliance profession is what we learned about who we hired to work in and lead the compliance and ethics department.  We had some epic failures, and many very successful people entered the profession.  Recent events at Coke have highlighted the need to consider the differences between the skill set required to get us to this point in the evolution of ESG versus what we need going into the future. 

By Roy Snell

Greenwashing is an offshoot of the word whitewashing, which is often used to describe the act of covering up vices, crimes, and scandals.  Greenwashing describes the act of exaggerating the environmental reporting of an organization.  Citizens of many countries are extremely upset about environmental issues and are livid about environmental exaggeration and cover-up. 

By Mike Biernik

A well styled, diverse group of people sitting in front of a tree is not an ESG Program. In fact, if this contrived imagery does not reflect your organization, you are at risk of being exposed to your stakeholders.

By Roy Snell

The number of ESG remated laws are staggering and growing every day. Many great people will help their organization improve their ESG program. However, we must use all the tools of a compliance program, audit, investigation, education, anonymous reporting, etc. to help ensure our organization is complying with all environmental, social and governance related laws. 

By Roy Snell

There are so many intersections between integrity and ESG that we are going to need to build a roundabout. But the intersections between ESG and integrity that I am sharing with you in this post… may surprise you.