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NEW YORK, LONDON and SINGAPORE, April 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --
A new global survey of companies and institutional investors commissioned by ING shows the COVID-19 pandemic as a 'white swan' moment, which has accelerated the majority of companies' green transformation plans. At the same time, investors are demanding more hard environmental targets be put in place by companies. Despite this, companies, investors, and governments must move faster and further in making environmental, social and governance (ESG) progress as the pandemic raises the bar for ambition.
According to the new report, '
Now or never: A new bar for sustainability', 57 percent of companies say they are accelerating green transformation plans, and 62 percent will likely tie executive compensation to environmental targets in 2021. Currently, less than one in 10 companies in the survey have linked executive compensation to ESG targets. From the investors surveyed, 74 percent have increased commitments for portfolio alignments to the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and 72 percent are adopting more ambitious targets for sustainability outcomes of ESG investment.