Materiality Analysis: Basis of the ESG Strategy
Almost all listed companies now regularly conduct a so-called ESG materiality analysis. We explain why there is more to it than just a costly market research operation – and show what a pragmatic and cost-efficient materiality analysis looks like. An ESG materiality analysis forms the basis for the development of a company’s sustainability strategy. For […]
Net Zero – what’s behind the climate neutrality claim?
More and more companies are claiming “climate neutrality”. But what does this and the popolar synonym “net zero” mean? Can corporate activities really be climate-neutral or is the offsetting of CO2 emissions guilty of greenwashing? Many companies are talking about it – and are promising even more. The Dutch oil company Shell wants to become […]
Is the EU Taxonomy Already a Failure?
Starting this year, large listed companies in the EU are supposed to determine their own sustainability level according to the specifications of the so-called EU taxonomy. But the initial results are sobering: more than a third state that exactly 0% of their own sales are sustainable. Will they soon be left behind in terms of […]
Coming Up: CSRD
At present, just little over 500 listed companies, insurance providers and banks in Germany are subject to legal ESG reporting requirements. But in a few years, this number will increase almost thirty-fold to over 15,000 entities. We explain why this is the case and what the planned regulation is supposed to look like – doing […]
How ESG Ratings Make the Capital Markets More Inefficient
The market for ESG investments is still a Wild West in which most of the times the law of the jungle prevails: Those who report more on ESG are also rated better by ESG rating agencies. Small- and mid-cap companies with limited resources are at risk of being left behind – unless they also start […]
What are ESG Ratings and who is behind them?
ESG rating agencies aim to assess how sustainable companies are. The aim is to make ESG performance more comparable for investors so that they can use their money more effectively in a sustainable way. But are the rating agencies really achieving their goal? Their judgments are feared – or coveted. They play a decisive role […]
The 5 Most Important ESG Indicators
The list of ESG requirements from a wide variety of sources is long and growing – and varies greatly from industry to industry. Let’s therefore limit ourselves to the five most important quantitative ESG indicators for every company. Companies that can reliable report on those five have made an important first step. Rating agencies like […]
WTF: The last ESG rating you’ll ever need
ESG ratings: there’s clearly too many of them. With the new What The FUture (WTF) ESG rating, we’ve created a rating that makes all the others obsolete – by combining their most convincing features with the BEST methodology. Companies and investors worldwide are complaining about the plethora of ESG ratings. In 2020, The World Business […]