The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:32:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png Corporate Investment in ESG Practices – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 Corporate Investment in ESG Practices https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2015/08/05/corporate-investment-in-esg-practices/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=corporate-investment-in-esg-practices https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2015/08/05/corporate-investment-in-esg-practices/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2015 13:52:52 +0000 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/?p=71271?d=20150805101410EDT Posted by Matteo Tonello, The Conference Board, Inc., on Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Editor's Note:

Matteo Tonello is managing director at The Conference Board, Inc. This post relates to an issue of The Conference Board’s Director Notes series and was authored by Mr. Tonello and Thomas Singer. The complete publication, including footnotes and Appendix, is available here.

Corporate investment in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices has been widely investigated in recent years. Studies show that a business corporation may benefit from these resource allocations on multiple levels, ranging from higher market and accounting performance to improved reputation and stakeholder relations. However, poor data quality and the lack of a universally adopted framework for the disclosure of extra-financial information have hindered the field of research. This post reviews empirical analyses of the return on investment in ESG initiatives, outlines five pillars of the business case for corporate sustainability, and discusses why the positive correlations found by some academics remain disputed by others.

(more…)

]]> https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2015/08/05/corporate-investment-in-esg-practices/feed/ 1