Take control of SRI/ESG investor communications
A ten-step guide to effective (mainstream-IR-aligned) investor communications on sustainability.
Following this should enable companies to halve the amount of time they spend on SRI/ESG communications and double their reach and effectiveness.
As investors become more discriminating about which companies to prioritise, companies naturally ask whether they are likely to be on the radar screen. Clearly, this question should be answered on a case-by-case basis. However, the following rules of thumb have merit for European companies:
- Size: For companies of >€2bn market cap, there will typically be Europe-wide interest; for companies in a leading market index (e.g. FTSE100, CAC40) there will be interest from domestic investors
- Sectors: There is typically more investor interest in environmentally and socially sensitive sectors: Autos, Consumer, Oil & Gas, Utilities etc. There is less interest ‘screened sectors’: Aerospace, Tobacco etc.
- Product mix: Environmental technologies or socially-beneficial services are favoured
- Quality of social/environmental performance. Companies with well-structured sustainability strategies that are delivering results should shouting it from the rooftops; Companies with less advanced strategies should keep working internally – and keep key investors up to date in a low-key manner
- A company’s domicile. Investors in UK, France, Switzerland & Netherlands tend to be interested; (With some notable exceptions) investors in Spain, Italy and Germany are less interested
