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Media Mentions & Articles

The ESG Shuffle: Voluntary Shifts to Mandatory

This is the third Thompson Hine survey tracking companies’ ESG programs, priorities and progress. After our 2021 survey set a broad baseline, our 2022 survey, “An ESG Snapshot: As Pressure Increases, Who’s Doing What and How?” guided our ESG focus toward businesses that were narrowing and intensifying their ESG commitments.

The year and a half since our last ESG trends survey has brought significant change from a true voluntary framework to looming mandatory disclosures.

  • Legal mandates and regulations from the global to the state level have
  • continued to be front and center, and reporting is on the rise. While many are currently being challenged, companies are preparing.
  • A confluence of reporting frameworks seems to be converging to the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) as a best practice and in some cases, a requirement.
  • Many companies are turning to tracking and reporting using a double
  • materiality standard.
  • An increase in the amount of greenwashing and reverse discrimination
  • litigation has led companies to tighten, and in some cases, narrow their ESG focus.
  • Although Scope 3 is not currently the focus for most U.S. companies, additional strategic directives are being evaluated to start capturing this important data.

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