Report emphasises lack of trust with ESG among businesses

There seems to be a deficiency in the trust department among businesses when it comes to sustainability and ESG reporting. A study released this week by Inmarsat found this to be the case and pointed to a lack of industry trust as the main culprits in this issue.

Over 1,000 views of senior decision makers and ESG specialists were polled in the assembly of this study. 

Numbers never lie: 76% of major industries do not trust the ESG reporting of their competitors. Breaking is down further: 80% of respondents believe competitors are working harder on being perceived as sustainable rather than actually achieving sustainable outcomes.

In a strange, counter intuitive seeming twist, 81% of businesses polled believe they are more sustainable than their competitors, yet only 47% of these were willing to share the entirety of their ESG data with third parties (something which would surely improve industry benchmarking for all). 

IoT providing solutions

One other area covered in the report was whether the Internet of Things (IoT) could provide solutions to ESG problems, such as improving transparency. Of those polled 82% said that it was critical to improving outcomes and 81% it was critical to improving trust. As a result 80% plan to see increased use of IoT solutions over the coming year. 

Upon the results, Jat Brainch implored sounder reporting practices: “To demonstrate progress, however, businesses must overcome their reluctance to share useful data and have the confidence to publish meaningful insights. Otherwise, they risk undermining genuine collaboration on sustainability and overshadowing the real progress being made. 

“There is no quick fix, but creating methodical benchmarks based on actionable data , and sharing the results, will play a critical role in re-establishing trustworthy ESG reporting.”