The great ESG language divide

THERE is today a huge disconnect between the way investors consume sustainability content, and the way companies produce it. They have to meet in the middle.

Companies’ sustainability communications have to be less self-serving. And investors have to bite the bullet and pick up some technical jargon to tune in to the conversation and keep companies accountable around new environmental, social and governance (ESG) focuses. 

I see why there is a divide. Having watched the ESG space for a year now, I can now fully appreciate the running joke that if we haven’t drowned from rising sea levels by 2050, we would drown instead in the sea of acronyms, jargon, and words.