Podcasts

These days, it’s hard to ignore the debate over the role business should play in society.

The terms greenwashing, tech monopolies, and corporate greed seem ubiquitous. But what if business could actually help solve some of today’s biggest problems?

The Is Business Broken? podcast features conversations with academics, industry leaders, and politicians that ask the thorny questions necessary for this moment and help us navigate real world solutions.

The series is a production of the Ravi K. Mehrotra Institute for Business, Markets, & Society at BU Questrom School of Business and the ESG episodes were done in collaboration with IMAP.

Promises and Perils of the ESG Movement


Release date: May 2, 2024

This episode features a debate between BU Strategy and Innovation Professor, Andrew King, and Witold Henisz, Faculty Director of the ESG Initiative at The Wharton School, about what ESG is and isn’t, what it can and can’t do – and what we need to do to make it better. ESG metrics grew out of investors’ desire to better understand the risks within their assets. Later it was used to refer to social impact funds that worked to create environmental or social change, but the two are not the same. These two distinct, but overlapping goals, have been mixed up in many people’s minds and greenwashing from some investment firms has helped aid this confusion. Both King and Henisz argue that self-regulation is insufficient, and that more government regulation is needed, but King argues that government regulation should come first and Henisz argues that regulation won’t come until after corporations have had practice disclosing the risks, because regulation typically follows industry standards and rarely leads it.   

 

Revisiting ESG: How Did We Get Here?


Release date: May 9, 2024

In this episode we focus on the history of ESG with commentary by BU Accounting Professor, Eddie Riedl, and John Streur, former CEO of Calvert Research and Management. They remind us that throughout history, companies have factored nonfinancial issues into their business plans. Questionable practices like child labor and the slave trade have been adopted or rejected, based on competing priorities for profit or ethics. Global trade and finance, the physical impacts of climate change, and an increase in demands for diversity and equal pay have all served to put a spotlight on ESG-related issues. Reporting requirements have evolved from investor demand for additional information, to corporations responding with sometimes incomplete data, to best practices that emerge as companies learn from each other, to regulators setting standards based on best practices. Both profitability disclosure, and fair value reporting are examples of topics that were once controversial, yet now commonplace. These guests discuss the parallels they see in today’s evolution of ESG disclosure to the historical development of past reporting standards. 

 

What Are Today’s Business Leaders Saying About ESG?


Release date: May 16, 2024

Although ESG (environmental, social, governance) has become politically controversial, businesses are still working to address the impacts of ESG factors. Chief Impact Officer of Energy Impact Partners, Peter Fox-Penner, and Mindy Lubber, CEO and President of Ceres discuss how companies are integrating climate risk data into their core business operations, how today’s political pushback against ESG is affecting business decisions, and where we are with the data on environmental risks. Both Lubber and Fox-Penner maintain that businesses are taking into account environmental and social risks as part of their bottom line. Sustainability officers are no longer off to the side but are now reporting to the C-suite and fully integrated into planning for all departments. The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) included climate risk in its new rules because the SEC regulates risk to companies – and climate risk is a material and financial risk. Metrics and data are plentiful, despite the challenges of measuring some risks – essentially, the data is good enough to provide guidance to companies and the learning curve is ongoing. Lubber argues for a price on carbon.

The Future of ESG: Where Do We Go from Here?


Release date: May 23, 2024

The future of ESG depends on how we approach our current moment, according to today’s show guests. Associate Professor at BU School of Law, Madison Condon, and Bob Eccles, Visiting Professor of Management Practice at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, talk about the politicization of ESG and the need for a bipartisan approach to the critical risks surrounding climate change and other systemic issues. ESG as a term is going away, but the environmental risks created by climate change are not. Condon argues that asset managers will need to take creative leaps of judgement in assessing investments in light of climate change – how should we invest in a climate change future? Many asset managers support the new SEC rules regarding climate disclosures. Eccles argues that people are expecting too much from reporting alone and that there is substantial support for a carbon tax across the political spectrum. Finally, the panelists describe how new technology, both in terms of tracking emissions and creating new low–emission versions of products like cement, is also an important part of the evolution of ESG investing. 

Listen to the rest of the Is Business Broken? Podcast here: