How to get listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index

Over the last several years, an increasing number of institutional investors, ratings agencies, and other stakeholders have turned up the heat on companies to disclose their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives. The idea is that such information provides a more complete performance picture than traditional, purely financial, measures.

“The corporate community is responding to this heightened and accelerated interest on the part of global investors,” said Hank Boerner, chairman and co-founder of the Governance & Accountability Institute (G&A), during a recent webinar on sustainability reporting trends.

According to a report conducted by the G&A Institute, just under 20 percent of S&P 500 companies published a sustainability report in 2011. By 2015, however, 81 percent of the S&P 500 were publishing reports.