Lowest Number of S&P 500 Companies Citing “ESG” on Earnings Calls Since Q2 2020

During each corporate earnings season, companies often comment on their ongoing corporate goals and initiatives. Thus, did companies in the S&P 500 comment on environmental, social, and governance factors during their earnings conference calls for the first quarter?

FactSet Document Search (which allows users to search for key words or phrases across multiple document types) was used to answer this question. Through Document Search, FactSet searched for the term “ESG” in the conference call transcripts of all the S&P 500 companies that conducted earnings conference calls from March 15 through June 9.

Of these companies, 74 cited the term “ESG” during their earnings calls. This is the lowest number of S&P 500 companies citing “ESG” on earnings calls going back to Q2 2020 (57). Since peaking at 156 in Q4 2021, the number of S&P 500 companies citing “ESG” on earnings calls has declined (quarter-over-quarter) in four of the past five quarters. Compared to Q4 2022, the number of S&P 500 companies citing “ESG” on earnings for Q1 2023 decreased by 23%.

At the sector level, the Financials (11) and Health Care (11) sectors had the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “ESG” on earnings calls for Q1. Combined, these two sectors accounted for 30% of the total number of S&P 500 companies discussing “ESG” on earnings calls for Q1 2023. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, eight of the eleven sectors recorded a decrease in the number of companies citing “ESG” on earnings calls, led by the Industrials (-5) and Information Technology (-4) sectors.

It is interesting to note that while the number of companies citing “ESG” on earnings calls decreased on a sequential basis in Q1, the number of S&P 500 companies citing “AI” on earnings calls increased on a sequential basis. For more details, please view our related article, "Highest Number of S&P 500 Companies Citing "AI" on Q1 Earnings Calls In Over 10 Years." 

The FactSet Earnings Insight report will not be published on June 16. The next edition of the report will be published on June 23.

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