SustainabilityHQ.com Weekly Highlights - June 9, 2011

ESG Performance Factors are important to a growing number of asset owners and managers.  The ESG framework – considering environmental and energy issues and impacts, the company positioning and actions on social/societal issues, and effective corporate governance (or not) – is a style…an approach…an expanding set of guidelines….a framework…depending on the analyst and investor and their embrace of ESG factors in investment decision-making.  

ESG is not about intangibles or the non-financials – these factors are very tangible to investors and stakeholders.  Yes, the financials are critical for all investors – but corporate performance on ESG factors is now a proxy for the quality of corporate management for many investors.  And quality of management (and board) directly impacts the financials – determining access to capital markets, cost of capital, attractiveness to investors, buy-sell-hold decisions, and more.

In these Highlights we offer the results of our continuous global scanning for news, commentary and research on ESG issues – for investors, and for the information of corporate boards, senior executives and managers.  These are selections from the hundreds of public reports and original content contained in our Sustainability HQ™  platforms.

We invite your comments, questions and inquiries.  The Team at G&A Institute – your Sustainability Headquarters.

ESG / Sustainability

Investors Controlling $1 Trillion in Assets Call on Russell 1000 Companies to Integrate Sustainability Into Business Models  
(Source: 3BL Media)  Citing global climate change, resource constraints and growing population pressures, more than two dozen major institutional investors, collectively managing $1 trillion in assets, have asked the Russell 1000 companies in a jointly-signed letter to actively embrace the “new reality” of so-called ESG risks – environmental, social and governance – in both their actions and required investor disclosures.   Associated Profiles : Ceres, California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS)

100 LEADING COMPANIES MEASURED ON ACTUAL VS. PERCEIVED SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS  
(Source: CisionWire.com)  Full-service brand consulting firm, Brandlogic, in partnership with CRD Analytics, a leading provider of sustainability investment analytics that powers the NASDAQ CRD Global Sustainability Index (QCRD), today released the inaugural version of the “Sustainability Leadership Report: Measuring Perception vs. Reality.”  This report, Brandlogic’s latest contribution to ideas that drive performance, is a quantitative analysis of actual vs. perceived performance around environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors for 100 leading companies. Supported by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), the report is available for immediate download at http://www.brandlogic.com/sustainability/ . 

Japan May Tap Geothermal Power to Offset Atomic Loss, BNEF Says  
(Source: Bloomberg)  Japan can increase the amount of electricity it generates using geothermal resources to offset power shortages as the government reconsiders its reliance on nuclear energy, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said. The country has the potential to be one of the “world’s biggest generators of geothermal power,” the renewable energy research arm of Bloomberg LP said in a report.  Associated Profiles : Bloomberg New Energy Finance 

This is just a sample of three 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 9th 2010