Corporate social responsibility and ESG – environment, social and governance – issues are playing a more prominent role in corporate strategies as investors push the agenda through shareholder resolutions and other means.

It’s no longer enough for companies to simply publish glossy sustainability reports, while continuing to chart a business as usual course. First Energy, a large US utility with a significant amount of coal in its power generation portfolio, recently agreed to work toward reducing carbon emissions in response to a shareholder resolution.

“Investors have been pushing on some of these issues for a long time, and I think there’s been broader acceptance among the investor community. And that’s evident in the rising support for certain of these proposals,” Allie Rutherford, director of corporate governance at Ernst & Young said. “I also think there’s growing recognition on the company side.” – New York Times