Strategy & planningFAQs

What objectives should companies set for sustainable investor communications?

Companies should set broad but simple objectives covering their communications with their largest investors and influential research providers. These need to be easily tracked and refreshed on an annual basis. Typically, these will include measures of:

What objectives should companies set for sustainable investor communications?

 

  • Inputs - the resources (employee time) that companies expect to spend on sustainable investor communications
  • Outputs - the deliverables from that time (# of analysts met, events hosted, reports produced etc)
  • Outcomes - the expectations that companies have of this activity - for example, an uplift across six major research providers or improved perception amongst their top 20 investors

Unfortunately,

  • Most companies do not yet articulate clear objectives for their SRI/ESG communications - this is unhelpful as it makes progress difficult and measurement impossible
  • Some set simplistic objectives based on single focal points (e.g. inclusion within a specific single SRI/ESG index) - this is potentially worse as it focuses companies on one single set of metrics which are highly unlikely to be representative of the wider market's interest.