The Sustainability of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Reporting in the US and the UK

Abstract

Regardless of the controversy over the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues on the fates or fortunes of business corporations, calls whether from policymakers (I. Mirza, ‘Congress a step closer to making corporate ESG disclosure mandatory’ (2021), JD Supra, 28 June 2021, https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/congress-a-step-closer-tomaking- 9721287/ (accessed 8 Aug. 2021), social advocates (J. Jaeger, ‘Activist investor win at ExxonMobil should be wake-up call for companies’ (2021), Compliance Week, 15 June 2021, https://www.complianceweek.com/boards-andshareholders/ activist-investor-win-at-exxonmobil-should-bewake- up-call-for-companies/30475.article (accessed 8 Aug. 2021), and from businesses itself (A. Murray & K. Dunn, ‘CEOs are calling for more regulation-of ESG standards’, Fortune, 12 August 2021, https://fortune. com/2021/08/12/ceos-are-calling-for-more-regulationof-esgstandards/ (accessed 12 Aug. 2021), are increasingly made throughout the course of the present COVID-19 pandemic cycle for regulatory actions (C.A. Adams & S. Abhayawansa, ‘Connecting the COVID-19 pandemic, environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing and calls for “harmonisation” of sustainability reporting’, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa. 2021.10230908/08/21 (accessed 9 Aug. 2021). Various facets of the COVID-19 pandemic have been blamed for their impacts on the lives and livelihoods of people across the world (OECD, ‘Coronavirus: The world economy at risk’ (2020), OECD Interim Economic Assessment (2 Mar. 2020), https://www.oecd.org/berlin/publikationen/Interim- Economic-Assessment-2-March-2020.pdf (accessed 8 Aug. 2021), including those in the US and the UK, but equally business corporations (E. Reicin, ‘Businesses should be held accountable for their ESG claims’ (2021), Forbes (23 Mar. 2021), https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesnonprofitcouncil/ 2021/03/23/businesses-should-be-held-accountable-for-theiresg- claims/?sh=67265fd25679 (accessed 8 Aug. 2021) and governments (K.P. Pucker, ‘Overselling sustainability reporting’ (2020), Harvard Business Review, May–June 2020, https://hbr.org/2021/05/overselling-sustainability-reporting (accessed 8 Aug. 2021) have also been blamed for their respective failures to do their parts in addressing ESG challenges that have become more prominent. Trust law, commercial trust, evolution of the role of a trustee, rule of law, whether a commercial trust is in the essence of a trust