Below is an excerpt from ISS-Corporate’s recently released article “News and Controversies: How Do Companies Monitor Stakeholder Grievances?” The full article is available on the ISS-Corporate online library.
Note: This publication provides an overview of monitoring corporate involvement in controversies linked to environmental, social, and governance matters, providing a brief background on standards for responsible business conduct and explains the ISS ESG approach to systematically capturing reported controversies in the ISS ESG News dataset and assessing mitigation and remediation, when applicable, through in-depth Norm-Based Research. Companies can leverage these datasets to track their own performance against authoritative frameworks, assess business partners and identify impact risks along their value chain.
While responsible business conduct has long been a focus for activists, special interest groups and the socially responsible investment movement, in recent years, more stakeholders are recognizing the importance of global norms for responsible business conduct to prevent and mitigate adverse impact. Governments around the world are demanding more comprehensive disclosures from companies and their investors, creating a feedback loop that increases the focus on these topics.
Monitoring the implementation of responsible business conduct standards across a company’s own operations and along the value chain can prove difficult. For the past several decades, corporate sustainability has been shaped by a variety of global standard-setting initiatives. Many voluntary frameworks are now being incorporated into regulation at the national or regional level. Legal frameworks largely focus on disclosure, yet a growing number of regulatory initiatives also introduce sustainability due diligence obligations.
By: Elias Siebert, Senior Associate, Product Manager, ISS-Corporate
