Conference Magazine - GoingPublic.de - Deutsches Eigenkapitalforum

Special: CSR
Figure 3: Shareholder perspective
Internal Stakeholders
beyond the evaluation of the classic ESG (Environment,
Social Governance) perspective. Sustainability is an investment
issue. Economic success is the focus of every company
and the aim of every investor is to achieve a return. It
is therefore essential to incorporate the economic perspective
in the sustainability analysis.
The result is a four-dimensional analysis model that is based
on the interests of all the shareholder groups of a company
and satisfies the dynamics of the investment process.
The challenge to companies
Customers
Suppliers
Competitors
Capital Market
State
Public
Environment
Source: DZ BANK Sustainable Investment Research
With the growing importance of supplementary and nonfinancial
key performance indicators, the information
needed by analysts and consequently, the challenge to
companies to provide this information, has significantly
changed the parameters for corporate reporting. For some
time now, merely reporting traditional and short-term financial
statistics has fallen far short of what is needed. On the
contrary, companies are now required to report on all four
aspects of sustainability on an ongoing basis. Due to the
escalating strategic importance of sustainability as an
issue, information on today’s supplementary and nonfinancial
key performance indicators is becoming increasingly
essential for predicting tomorrow’s financial data.
Page 76 Deutsches Eigenkapitalforum 2012
Management
Shareholders
Employees
The sustainability reporting of many companies has greatly
improved in recent years. However, it remains far from ideal.
Some companies are still reducing their reporting to a few
aspects, or are still only paying lip service to sustainability
by equating it with a purely advertising measure to portray
themselves as environmentally responsible (“green washing”).
This is despite the fact that reporting is a vital instrument
to promote dialogue between a company and its
shareholders and should be appropriately tailored to what
is required.
Sustainable investments: where to now?
We are of the conviction that the market for sustainable
investments will continue to grow worldwide at the expense
of conventional forms of investment and that such investments
will achieve a higher share of the total managed
investment volume. This not only relates to an increase in
the number of existing products, but also to a qualitative
improvement in the spectrum of products on offer. Inno -
vative forms of investment, such as structured products
based on single titles or baskets of shares, corporate
bonds and completely new indices will extend the breadth
and depth of the available forms of sustainable investments.
Although in the short to medium term, the group of institutional
investors which includes pension funds, churches
and foundations will continue to account for the lion’s share
of global demand, we are assuming that a growing number
of private investors will recognise sustainability as an issue
affecting the investment process and will be tailoring their
investment aims accordingly.
Photo: PantherMedia / Nasir Khan