A new global survey has revealed a strong majority of chief executive officers want investors to place a higher value on sustainability in long-term investments.
The survey, conducted by Accenture and the UN Global Compact, found that 86 per cent of the chief executives wanted investors to more accurately value sustainability within their long-term investments.
Commenting on the research, the chair of the UN-backed Principles of Responsible Investment (PRI) initiative, Donald MacDonald, claimed there was now a critical mass of institutional investors who knew that good management of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues represented an important factor in the long-term financial success of their investments.
“If a company has poor corporate governance or persists with bad environmental management then it can, and should, affect the long-term valuation of the company,” he said.
MacDonald said that the truth was that ESG still represented a relatively new concept for many investors, but there were now leaders in the mainstream markets who had developed the tools and models to integrate sustainability and who could push the global capital markets beyond the tipping point on sustainability.
