Corporate CEOs and boards are under increasing pressure from investors and others to do better by the planet and everyone living on it. In other words, do better by employees, customers, communities, shareholders and the environment. While many ESG criteria are nonfinancial in nature, they may have a material impact on a company's financial and investment performance. Keeping everyone in checkComplicating matters further for CEOs is that the mandate to do better on ESG issues can extend to what every participant in the company's supply chain does as well. To make reporting more uniform, a World Economic Forum task force , at the behest of the International Business Council, has proposed a streamlined list of 22 ESG metrics under four pillars: planet, people, prosperity and governance.

Source: CNN February 20, 2020 20:15 UTC