The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in ESG Reporting

FRANKFURT, GERMANY- EQS Newswire - 30 November 2022 - In a new report released today, the Global ESG Monitor (GEM) shines a light on the Environmental, Social and Governance reporting of 350 important corporations worldwide. The GEM is the world leader in analyzing the transparency of ESG reporting and publishes a major report annually which analyzes non-financial ESG reporting across Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia. "2022 has been a year in which the importance of ESG issues has increased dramatically," said Michael Diegelmann, Co-Founder of the GEM. "Environmental and social crises fill the news daily and corporations need to clearly communicate what they are doing and how they govern their efforts. Progress is being made, but the bottom line is that many large multi-national companies fall short in their ESG reporting which will not go unnoticed by investors and the public." In the GEM 2022, 625 ESG reports from 350 companies included in indices from ten major stock markets were analyzed. Comprehensive regional reports will be published subsequently over the coming weeks. Today the GEM global report is being published, covering the four most relevant continental stock market indices from Europe, the USA, Asia, and Australia^[1]. Few corporations approached the top of the scoring scale of 100 as defined by the GEM Assay™, the Global ESG Monitor's proprietary analytical model. The world's highest score for transparency in non-financial reporting was 90, and the lowest was seven. The GEM Assay™ analyzes the ESG reporting of companies on184 criteria as disclosed in their published ESG reports. Corporate ESG reports are used in a variety of ways, including as a factor in third-party ESG scores used by investors to guide financial decisions. When comparing the transparency of ESG reporting across continents, the average corporate score was 66 out of 100 in Europe, followed by 56 for Asia and 53 for both the United States and Australia. "It is no surprise that the GEM found such a wide difference in reporting transparency in different nations and regions. There is still no uniform, internationally recognized standard in ESG reporting and this poses challenges for companies," said Ariane Hofstetter, the GEM's Co-Founder and Head of Research and Data Science. "Even though there is the widespread use of important analysis tools such as materiality assessments, there is still a lot of make believe and lack of validity and liability in the results." The research clearly shows that European companies set the pace globally on ESG transparency, as eight of the top ten companies were from Europe and two from Asia. The company with the highest overall score and thus the most transparent company with regards to ESG reporting was the Italian energy company, Enel SpA. The GEM Top Ten

Rank	Company	Index	GEM ASSAYTM SCORE (of 100)
1	Enel SpA	EUROSTOXX	90
2	Iberdrola SA	EUROSTOXX	87
3	CRH PLC	EUROSTOXX	84
4	Vonovia SE	EUROSTOXX	84
5	Industria de Diseno Textil SA	EUROSTOXX	81
6	Deutsche Post AG	EUROSTOXX	80
7	TotalEnergies SE	EUROSTOXX	78
8	Banco Santander SA	EUROSTOXX	77
9	Anta Sports Products Ltd	S&P 50 (Asia)	77
10	Fubon Financial Holding	S&P 50 (Asia)	77

Further InformationThe Global ESG Monitor 2022 Transparency ReportGender Diversity: The world has changed – at least in some regions. Gender diversity is a key part of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The GEM analyzed disclosures on gender diversity by collecting data on "male, female, other". Because there was such little information disclosed in the "other" category, the GEM analysis focused on male and female. Worldwide, the most gender diverse management structures and Boards of Directors were found in the United States, with 90% of companies having gender mixed boards and only 10% having a male-only board. In Europe, boards were found to be 12% male and 88% mixed; boards in Australia were 72% mixed gender with 28% all-male; boards in Asia came in last place with 57% male-only boards and only 43% having women members. Going deeper, it is noticeable that the average ratio of women to men is most balanced in Europe with at least 50% for each gender. It was significantly less balanced in the rest of the world with...