SustainabilityHQ.com Weekly Highlights June 10, 2015

Highlights #250 is Now in Your Mailbox - With An Important Flash Report About the S&P 500. Companies And Their Bedrock Sustainability Reporting

This week you are receiving the 250th issue of G&A Institute’s SHQ Weekly Highlights newsletter.  It was on November 16, 2009 that the first Weekly Highlights was published and distributed to a few hundred individuals interested in ESG and Sustainability, corporate responsibility, sustainable & responsible investing…and related issues & topics.  Wow -– has that distribution roster grown!  The newsletter now connects with almost 14,000 professionals and institutions worldwide.  And where it was still an early morning a “hunt” for suitable information six years ago, today the editors’ challenge is to select the most important items from a constantly-widening torrent of news, research results, commentary & opinion…and other information related to the topics.

We hope you have benefitted from our efforts to inform you and your colleagues over these 250 issues.   Today we focus on content for you, the professional who studies and acts on the stories, reports and commentaries that now examines not only the original list of topics (from 2009), but also new  issues including the hot topic of materiality; the growing importance of sustainability indexes and benchmarks;  and dramatically-expanded corporate sustainability reporting, to mention a few. 

Our Highlights content is tweeted and re-tweeted,  and posted and distributed through social media, Web sites and organization bulletins.  We pleased to report that the Governance & Accountability Institute's information channels have continued to grow and expand and have a positive impact on society to bring us all closer to a more sustainable business and natural environment.  We thank you for your continued interest and support.

A portion of the Weekly content over the past six years has focused on the extensive research work of the G&A Institute team.  This week’s Top Story is a “Flash Report” about the continued expansion of corporate sustainability/responsibility reporting.  Our team led by Louis D. Coppola (EVP of G&A) and his team of five interns determined after careful examination that three-quarters – 75% -- of the S&P500 Index ® Companies are now publishing corporate sustainability reports in 2014.

The growth in such reporting among the S&P 500 is dramatic:  one-fifth of companies reporting in 2011 (just under 20%); more than half (53%) reporting a year later, in 2012; then 73% reporting by 2013 – 7-in-10 companies among the largest public issuer universe for investors.  And that number is holding steady:  75% reporting in 2014.  We invite you to read the Top Story this week – there’s very important information for you that you will be seeing in many references over the coming year.

This is just a sample of some of the articles from this weeks SustainabilityHQ Highlights.  You can view the full Highlights by using the following links. Sustainability | ESG, Highlights for the Week of June 10, 2015