ABSTRACT
For the community of practitioners and researchers in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR), is also known as ‘corporate citizenship’. The BP disaster raised deeper questions about the usefulness of voluntary CSR policies and reports, as well as the credibility and usefulness of the new profession of analysts and raters of corporate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance and the espoused commitments of institutional investors to Responsible Investment (RI). The key message is the scale of RI grows and ESG analysts and indices proliferate, so participants in this field will be challenged to demonstrate effectiveness and accountability. The implications of the growth and investment in ESG analysts and raters are summarised well by the founder of the Global Reporting Initiative, Allen White: The confluence of multiple forces is escalating the demand and supply of ESG information. A weakness in ESG analysis is the concerns over the independence of the analysis and rankings, due to conflicts of interest.
