As the world’s biggest companies work toward net-zero, corporations ask: What do we do about our suppliers? Meanwhile, ESG investing truly has gone mainstream (with the regulatory attention to prove it). We review these trends and emerging risks.

ESG trends impacting investors in 2022 range from evolving regulation and the receding of greenwashing, to the push for change in energy production and the role of capital. Each presents risks, and opportunities, for investors in the years to come.

ESG ratings are widely used in active management and ESG indexes, with a growing focus on climate change. This has increased debate around two questions: Why are ESG ratings so different across providers? And how do ESG ratings reflect climate risk?

How can investors help accelerate the net-zero transition? This was the central question at MSCI’s 2021 Global Investing Conference. We present the core takeaways from the two-day event, which featured senior corporate and investment thought leaders.

Climate. ESG bubbles. Disclosure. Social inequality. Biodiversity. The topics don’t get much bigger — or more systemic. Here’s our analysis of the five ESG trends that will matter most to companies and their investors in 2021.

ESG themes are long-term, but some can emerge with sudden force. We are watching five trends we believe will unfold in 2020 to catapult ESG investing into the new decade.

Looking in one’s backyard for human capital.

Many investors want to stick to their values or beliefs, as well as meet certain financial objectives. How can ESG indexes  help them address these goals?

We examined constituents of the MSCI ACWI Index that had been recognized as innovators on one or more annual lists produced by Forbes, Fast Company, MIT Sloan and the Boston Consulting Group between 2015 and 2018.

California companies with no women on their boards are going to have to quickly up their diversity game.

Is my money helping solve the world’s problems or making them worse? An increasing number of the beneficiaries of public funds, globally, are asking such searching questions about where and how their retirement funds are invested. Understanding how investments have an impact on societal issues can be much more complex and difficult to identify for institutional investors.

When it comes to ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing, conventional wisdom holds that G is the only part that really matters, as a window into overall management quality and providing insights and value for investors. Our analysis suggests this has not been true; that the E and S aspects of ESG did help sort the truly outstanding firms from a group that already shares an array of robust financial traits.

Previously, we have asked whether the number of women on boards has a relationship to corporate financial performance. Research suggests that it has. But is that the whole story?