ISS ESG, the responsible investment arm of Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), today released a new summary report, Corporate Controversies That Defined 2022, produced by ISS ESG’s Norm-Based Research team, leveraging ESG Newsroom, ISS ESG’s AI-supported news monitoring service that allows users to search, monitor, and filter large volumes of news articles related to ESG controversies that highlight a company’s reputational risk.
By way of background, ESG Newsroom compiles parsed, near real-time media information on company-related ESG controversies from tens of thousands of traditional media, social media, and stakeholder publications globally. It leverages the seamless interaction of AI and specialized ISS ESG analysts to provide clearly categorized and filtered results, applying a granular classification of ESG controversy themes, with 87 primary themes.
For the purpose of the 2022 summary report launched today, controversy themes have been aggregated under 18 broader areas to support an assessment of unique ESG controversies. This 2022 trend analysis is based on data for the period January 1, 2022, to November 15, 2022. ISS ESG identified and tracked nearly 17,000 ESG controversies, reported by media and stakeholders, linked to around 3,000, or 18 percent, of monitored companies.
Bonnie Saynay, Managing Director, Global Head of ESG Research and Data Strategy at ISS ESG said: “The new report highlights that nearly 18%, the largest share of individual corporate controversies identified by ISS ESG this year, revolved around labor rights, with strike action, working conditions, and union rights as predominant themes. Of further note, controversies linked to climate change and biodiversity received comparatively less attention from the press, according to our analysis.”
The report found that Energy and Automobiles & Components were overall the industries with the highest intensity of ESG controversies this year. The pervasiveness of controversies was greater among Telecommunication Services, however, where a third of companies were tied to problematic conduct.
The report provides further in-depth analysis of ‘actualized ESG controversies,’ based on ISS ESG’s Norm-Based Research methodology that distils reported content from ESG Newsroom, assessing important key elements such as type of corporate involvement and company responsibility, in addition to evaluating the severity, stage of remediation, and verification of a controversy. This year’s analysis highlights that issuers still face scrutiny for their operations in controversial locations. Subjects of scrutiny include the adequacy of issuers’ remediation measures regarding forced labor in Xinjiang, the practical and ethical difficulties of divesting from Myanmar following the military’s reported continued human rights abuses, and past operations in Iraq and Syria.
Other actualized ESG controversies highlighted by the report include particular systemic failures and violations. For instance, labor rights in Australia were at the forefront of stakeholders’ concerns, with the Fly-In-Fly-Out (FIFO) employment model proving itself particularly vulnerable to instances of workplace discrimination.
Download a copy of the report here.
ISS ESG Report Identifies Corporate Controversies that Dominated the News in 2022
ISS ESG, the responsible investment arm of Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), today released a new summary report, Corporate Controversies That Defined 2022, produced by ISS ESG’s Norm-Based Research team, leveraging ESG Newsroom, ISS ESG’s AI-supported news monitoring service that allows users to search, monitor, and filter large volumes of news articles related to ESG controversies that highlight a company’s reputational risk.
By way of background, ESG Newsroom compiles parsed, near real-time media information on company-related ESG controversies from tens of thousands of traditional media, social media, and stakeholder publications globally. It leverages the seamless interaction of AI and specialized ISS ESG analysts to provide clearly categorized and filtered results, applying a granular classification of ESG controversy themes, with 87 primary themes.
For the purpose of the 2022 summary report launched today, controversy themes have been aggregated under 18 broader areas to support an assessment of unique ESG controversies. This 2022 trend analysis is based on data for the period January 1, 2022, to November 15, 2022. ISS ESG identified and tracked nearly 17,000 ESG controversies, reported by media and stakeholders, linked to around 3,000, or 18 percent, of monitored companies.
Bonnie Saynay, Managing Director, Global Head of ESG Research and Data Strategy at ISS ESG said: “The new report highlights that nearly 18%, the largest share of individual corporate controversies identified by ISS ESG this year, revolved around labor rights, with strike action, working conditions, and union rights as predominant themes. Of further note, controversies linked to climate change and biodiversity received comparatively less attention from the press, according to our analysis.”
The report found that Energy and Automobiles & Components were overall the industries with the highest intensity of ESG controversies this year. The pervasiveness of controversies was greater among Telecommunication Services, however, where a third of companies were tied to problematic conduct.
The report provides further in-depth analysis of ‘actualized ESG controversies,’ based on ISS ESG’s Norm-Based Research methodology that distils reported content from ESG Newsroom, assessing important key elements such as type of corporate involvement and company responsibility, in addition to evaluating the severity, stage of remediation, and verification of a controversy. This year’s analysis highlights that issuers still face scrutiny for their operations in controversial locations. Subjects of scrutiny include the adequacy of issuers’ remediation measures regarding forced labor in Xinjiang, the practical and ethical difficulties of divesting from Myanmar following the military’s reported continued human rights abuses, and past operations in Iraq and Syria.
Other actualized ESG controversies highlighted by the report include particular systemic failures and violations. For instance, labor rights in Australia were at the forefront of stakeholders’ concerns, with the Fly-In-Fly-Out (FIFO) employment model proving itself particularly vulnerable to instances of workplace discrimination.
Download a copy of the report here.
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