Record-High Number of S&P 500 Companies Discuss “ESG” on Q2 Earnings Calls

During each corporate earnings season, it is not unusual for companies to comment on their ongoing corporate goals and initiatives. Given the growing focus on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors by investors, did companies in the S&P 500 comment on these factors during their earnings conference calls for the second 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 June 15 through September 5.

Of these companies, 150 cited the term “ESG” (in reference to environmental, social, and governance factors) during their earnings calls. This number marks a tie with the previous quarter for the highest overall number of S&P 500 companies citing “ESG” on earnings calls going back at least 10 years. At the sector level, the Industrials (29) and Financials (28) sectors had the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “ESG” on earnings calls for Q2. Combined, these two sectors accounted for more than one third of the total number of S&P 500 companies discussing “ESG” on earnings calls for Q2 2021.

On a quarter-over-quarter basis, there was no change in the overall number of S&P 500 companies citing “ESG” on earnings calls in Q2 2021 relative to Q1 2021. At the sector level, five of the 11 sectors recorded an increase in the number of companies citing “ESG” on a quarter-over-quarter basis, led by the Industrials (+6) and Information Technology (+6) sectors.

Of the 150 S&P 500 companies that cited “ESG” on earnings calls for Q2 2021, 19 (13%) also discussed the terms “decarbonization” or “clean energy” (or both) during their earnings calls and 18 (12%) also discussed the terms “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “diversity and inclusion” (or both) during their earnings calls.

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