ESG Criteria on Sustainability Report: Moving Forward?

The ESG criteria emerged in 2005 as a spin-off from the Global Compact, a UN initiative that brings together companies from all over the world. The initial idea was to provide investors with information so that they could, with greater certainty and precision, make decisions about the allocation of investments, obtaining the highest possible return, while reducing the incidence of business impacts due to known social, environmental and governance risks. The reports originally served investors, seeking to understand what the environmental, social and governance issues that potentially impact businesses were and how they were tackled. Understanding the origins of these requirements is essential to understanding how today they are not sufficient to fulfil their intended purpose. In fact, these reports should be read bearing in mind that they are requirements aimed at the information needs of investors. The contribution of companies to major crises (such as the climate crisis, but also the Covid-19 pandemic or the deterioration of democracy), coupled with the human rights impacts caused by business activities, has meant that the ESG agenda has attracted the attention of civil society, especially in an international and domestic environment in which there is no real accountability for the negative impacts they cause. Thus, the ESG agenda, which was born with the DNA of pointing out environmental, social and governance risks for companies, is undergoing an adaptation (or is intended to undergo an adaptation) to become the search for risks that economic activity represents for society and the environment. This work seeks to: a. identify and point out the changes in sustainability reports, by comparatively analysing the content of sustainability reports produced before 2010 and others produced after 2020; b. point out the demands of civil society; c. identify the incorporation of civil society demands in the most recent reports.