Companies Fail to Communicate Sustainability to Investors

Although soliciting capital is crucial for growth companies have difficulty communicating sustainability to investors. creating strategies for communicating with investors on sustainability. This was the finding of a UN Global Compact, Accenture CEO Study on Sustainability. The study was conducted in collaboration with the Principles for Responsible Investment. The study is called, “The Investor Study: Insights from PRI Signatories.”

The importance of sustainability to investors was borne out in two statistics that emerged from the study. The first is that 88 percent of the investors surveyed see sustainability as an opportunity to establish a competitive advantage. The second is that 78 percent of investors see sustainability as a differentiator in determining industry leaders.

However, more than 9 out of 10 (91%) of surveyed investors think companies could do a better job of communicating sustainability to investors. Further, 88 percent indicated that companies should pay greater attention to sustainability in company valuations.

There is a huge divide between what CEOs think they can do and what investors think CEOs are able to do. The majority of CEOs (57%) seem to think that they can set out their sustainability strategies, while less than one in 10 (9%) of investors shared that view.

There is a tremendous gap between what businesses think they can do and what investors think they can do. A total of 74 percent of business leaders say their company measures their sustainability impacts while only 17 percent of investors share this belief.

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