Governance

While U.S. companies have nervously awaited to see how the SEC would address carbon accounting and reporting requirements, now pending for months and months, California has continued to lead the way on the environmental front with the passage of Senate Bill 253.

Protiviti’s Jim DeLoach revisits some of his writing from half a decade ago to see if companies are making good on the promise offered by technology to deepen the effectiveness of their risk management processes. Five years ago, I contributed an article to these pages titled, “Does ERM Really Matter in Your Organization?” This article described the status quo in...

Presidential candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump have targeted corporate ESG policies as politically problematic. But that doesn’t make it bad business. A group of authors from FTI Consulting talk about how corporate leaders can navigate risk around ESG efforts. Christine DiBartolo, Cheyenne Hopkins, Darius Johnson, Jess Roston, Raleigh Miller and Will O’Brien co-authored this article. While...

Despite the flurry of real and rhetorical backlash against ESG reporting in the United States, many U.S. companies will not be able to escape stringent sustainability reporting requirements emanating from the EU. And the time to gear up for compliance is short, writes Lukas Tunikaitis, sustainability consultant in UL Solutions’ ESG advisory and assurance practice. The need to comply with...

Globally, there has been a significant uptick in regulatory mandates and enforcement. These developments have presented challenges for businesses, while also creating opportunities for strategic M&A. Attorneys Ayşe Yüksel Mahfoud and Aara Tomar of Norton Rose Fulbright explore regulatory trends applying pressure to global markets. With the surge in innovative technologies and emerging issues like climate change, there are several...

Nearly three in four companies have appointed at least one employee to oversee ESG reporting and initiatives, a six-point increase over the previous year, while 71% of ESG practitioners say their companies get ESG data from three or more internal teams, according to a survey by Workiva. The company’s survey included responses from more than 900 professionals with knowledge of...

How can implementing the ProcessUnity Policy Evaluator benefit my company? Whitepaper Accelerate Third-Party Policy Reviews with AI What’s in this report from ProcessUnity: As businesses expand their third-party ecosystems, managing long onboarding cycles becomes more of a challenge: On one hand, organizations develop strong control structures to protect their assets, so they must hold their vendors to the same standard...

A new set of global sustainability standards are out. While good news, Csaba Farkas of TMF Group says these standards will require companies operating in countries that adopt them to ensure sustainability is on the board’s agenda — and that’s just the start. New global sustainability standards were released by the International Sustainability Standards Board in June with the aim...

Cost of governance remains high in Latin America Special Report Latin American Entity Portfolio Management What’s in this report from Mercator: The high cost of corporate governance is holding back multinational companies in Latin America, with the continent 31% more expensive than Europe and 65% slower than Northern America to operate in, according to Mercator’s report. Data from Mercator’s proprietary...

Four years ago, the Business Roundtable released its landmark statement on a corporation’s purpose. Since then, the world has seen a pandemic, widespread civil unrest and a global cost-of-living crisis. It’s through that lens that Protiviti’s Jim DeLoach revisits the statement now. The prevailing notion in the United States of a corporation’s purpose in a free-enterprise system, largely framed by...

Are ESG investors getting the most impact for their buck? That’s the question posed by a growing chorus of ESG critics, who argue that an unregulated ratings system is misleading — to the point that, as one headline reads, “The World May Be Better Off Without ESG Investing.” JTC’s Reid Thomas argues for a better way forward. Though claims that...

Mergers and acquisitions have always been influenced by market conditions, and the current landscape is no exception. While uncertainty and market volatility tend to slow down M&A activity, these headwinds can also present attractive valuations and opportunities for strategic deals. This double-edged sword has Prodinity’s Theunis Viljoen optimistic about the M&A prospects for the remainder of the year, with one...