The countless environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting systems can make the disclosure process time-consuming, duplicative and confusing.

Companies should centralize ESG oversight into a single function, Evan Williams, capital markets competitiveness director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said.  “This prevents internal splintering between different standards and [gives] companies one unified message on ESG,” Williams said. 

Public company CFOs are increasingly grappling with how to measure and report their company’s performance against ESG standards because of the importance investors and other stakeholders are placing on performance beyond profitability…. Long-time corporate governance activist Nell Minow says the first thing CFOs need to do on this issue is stop thinking of ESG disclosures as burdens. “ESG reporting is more than cost-effective, because it gives executives and board members information that can help them much more effectively develop strategy and manage risk,” Minow said. “The sooner CFOs think of ESG as an enhancement to the other data they collect and assign, the easier it will be to assign values and weights to ESG information.”

How to best manage ESG disclosures | CFO Dive