CECP: Investing in Society 2024 edition

Investing in Society examines how concurrent social and political pressures are impacting the corporate sector’s publicly facing disclosures. It also analyses the latest trends in environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics for companies in the Fortune 500® and S&P Global 1200. Using the Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP) Integrated Disclosure Scorecard to summarise these findings, the report explores trends, presents case studies and provides the actionable insights that corporate purpose leaders need to inform their companies’ long-term sustainable value-creation strategies. 

Methodology 

The CECP Integrated Disclosure Scorecard evaluates changes in corporate sector performance in relation to CECP’s Integrated Long-Term Plan Framework. The scorecard measures how well companies in the Fortune 500 and S&P Global 1200 embrace principles of stakeholder capitalism and long-term sustainable value creation. Using Bloomberg data, CECP, in partnership with KPMG, conducted an analysis of companies’ key performance indicators (KPIs) from 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 across the Integrated Long-Term Plan Framework. Data from 2023 were excluded due to limited availability. The scorecard indicates the change in median values of these KPIs between 2019 and 2022 within a matched set of companies that disclosed data for all four years. Previous versions of Investing in Society have analysed trends for a three-year period. Investing in Society: 2024 Edition uses four years to account for a pre-Covid-19 baseline. 

When choosing which KPIs to include in the scorecard, some data points were omitted due to a low number of company responses. To draw conclusions with a reasonable level of accuracy, we included only KPIs that had data for at least 50% of companies within each dataset. 

Conclusion  

In this report we explored how geopolitical, societal and environmental megatrends are impacting the ways companies are disclosing and making progress on their societal commitments. Shareholders and stakeholders are asking companies fundamental questions about their impact and purpose. The exponential power of purpose helps companies drive hard and soft returns by enabling them to project a vision for a better world. It is no longer enough for companies to be successfully competitive based solely on what they do. Now, it is imperative that they declare why it is important to society that they exist. The CECP Integrated Disclosure Scorecard highlights that companies understand the imperative to lead with purpose. Nearly all metrics in the scorecard have improved from 2019 to 2022 despite backlash in the US. More companies than ever are setting ambitious climate targets, making strides in diversity, equity and inclusion and ensuring human rights protections throughout their value chain. As stakeholders – customers, communities and employees – continue to feel the impacts of climate change and the transition to a green economy, companies will face ever more pressure to ensure that they lead with a clear purpose, have a positive impact on communities and the planet, and actively participate in a Just Transition.  

Trialogue is the Southern African partner of the CECP Global Exchange, a network of country-based, mission-driven corporate engagement organisations that aims to advance business as a force for good around the world.