US companies delay impact reports with DEI, ESG under attack
IT WAS just over a year ago when Nike’s then CEO, John Donahoe, trumpeted a flashy 90-second video, hyping a report about the company’s efforts to improve diversity and equality.
The report, he said in a LinkedIn post, is “a testament to our belief in the transformative power of sport”. Nike had released some version of it since at least 2001, often with similar fanfare.
But this year, the company won’t publish that report.
Nike joins a growing list of companies that includes JPMorgan Chase, Constellation Brands and Akamai Technologies that are either cancelling or delaying publication of their so-called sustainability or corporate impact reports for shareholders. While companies aren’t legally obliged to disclose such information, most S&P 500 members did so in 2024.
For more than a decade, this is usually the time period when companies tout the steps they’re taking to lower carbon emissions and improve the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) of their businesses.
Opposition to these reports first surfaced about three years ago when GOP lawmakers and activists began pressing companies to scale back such efforts. And some companies have reacted by taking steps such as scrubbing ESG (environmental, social and governance) and DEI-related words from public documents.
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Anti-DEI movement
The election of President Donald Trump has further empowered the anti-DEI movement. During his first week in the White House, he signed executive orders ending federal diversity programs and restricting gender definition to two sexes – male and female. None of the companies contacted said Trump’s actions changed their planning for releasing sustainability reports.
“The consequences of reported information are much greater now than they were a decade ago,” said Martin Whittaker, chief executive officer of Just Capital, noting that both progressive and conservative activists are searching for evidence of companies’ missteps.
He estimates that about 25 per cent of sustainability-related corporate reporting is behind schedule this year.
Here are some of the S&P 500 companies that have yet to publish sustainability reports, according to researchers at DiversIQ.
Nike, JPMorgan, Constellation Brands and Akamai Technologies have different explanations for why their sustainability reports haven’t been published this year.
Nike said in an e-mail that it still plans to share the work it’s doing to create a more inclusive and sustainable world for athletes in other formats and that its commitment to diversity goals for 2025 hasn’t changed.
In a regulatory filing, JPMorgan said it plans to release a consolidated report on ESG and climate topics later this year. However, the bank added that it will “monitor the evolving disclosure landscape as we iterate on our approach to disclosure”. JPMorgan published its “2024 Climate Report” in November.
At Constellation Brands, a spokesperson said the timing of the publication’s release was adjusted after receiving “stakeholder feedback”, and that the next report is scheduled to be issued next month. Cloud computing and cybersecurity company Akamai said its data-centre vendors were partly to blame for a delay in publication until the end of this quarter. The company wasn’t more specific.
For the past several years, Pfizer had published an impact report by April. When contacted last week about the delay in publication, a company spokesperson said the timing was adjusted to “allow for necessary internal processes in preparation for evolving global ESG reporting requirements”. The company released its report this week.
The lack of information is a blow, even if temporary, to corporate transparency. Many shareholders rely on the disclosures to gauge how serious companies are about addressing ESG issues, inequities in the workforce, and other factors that can impact the short and long-term value of their investments.
Activist investors who’ve pressed companies to release more data on DEI and climate initiatives have been willing to cut companies some slack this year, given the heightened scrutiny from the Trump administration.
At risk
Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, which supports social responsibility, said executives have been asking him privately for some flexibility in what information they release this year.
“We told them to not put themselves at risk right now,” he said. “That isn’t good for anyone.”
And the caution is warranted, said GianCarlo Canaparo, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that has warned against possible discrimination in company DEI programmes.
Corporate leaders are aware that Trump has asked agency heads to identify nine companies or organisations that should be investigated for possible illegal DEI activities, he said. So far, the names haven’t been made public, but it’s clearly on companies’ radar, he added.
“If you have been using race preferences, you really want to make sure you don’t get caught,” Canaparo said. “And if you haven’t, you want to make sure you aren’t dragged into litigation to explore whether you have.”
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