Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance Viewpoints

In this webinar, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, and Members Megan Gates and Jacob Hupart, examine key takeaways from the SEC’s proposed climate-related disclosures rule.

Investment funds that target companies with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies have experienced record growth. Yet it’s difficult for companies to know which ESG actions will affect the value of their stock. Although ESG rating providers focus on different ESG elements and market pricing of corporate ESG actions has been uneven, companies can take steps to influence how their ESG activity is valued.

In the latest discussion in our ESG webinar series, O’Kelly E. McWilliams III was joined by an informative panel featuring Katherine Grawe, Joe Aguilar, and Mamadou-Abou Sarr. In this webinar, our panelists explored how a variety of issues informed the deployment of ESG policies and shared best practices for putting ESG into action.

Learn from Mintz’s ESG subject matter experts as they explore what ESG really means for and within the legal profession, examine why law firms must embrace ESG as a business-critical priority, and share how law firm leadership can address ESG strategically and holistically.

Mintz Member Jennifer Rubin authored an article published by Corporate Counsel exploring how a new generation of tech savvy, social justice-focused, and environmentally aware employee stakeholders are creating recruitment, retention, and other employment challenges. In the article, she wrote that corporate counsel can play a key role in managing and mitigating this human capital risk, not only in response to the growing environmental, social, and governance disclosure and regulation trends, but as part of the need to design future-proof legal frameworks for the workplace.

In the world of Mergers and Acquisitions (“M&A”), both buyers and sellers are placing greater emphasis on Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) credentials. 

On November 18, 2021, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a Notice “to call attention to an upward trend in environmental crimes and associated illicit financial activity.” This focus on environmental crimes is designed to help address FinCEN’s priorities previously announced on June 30, 2021.

A recently proposed Department of Labor regulation entitled “Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights” (the “Proposal”) addresses the duties of retirement plan fiduciaries when considering economically targeted investments – i.e., investments that take into account environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) factors. Issued in response to a May 20, 2021 Executive Order, the Proposal would significantly modify prior, Trump-era rules on the subject. This post examines the Proposal from the retirement committee perspective.

Join Tom Burton, Chair of the Mintz Energy & Sustainability Practice, Megan Gates, Chair of the Mintz Corporate Practice and Co-chair of the Mintz Securities & Capital Markets Practice, Dan Romito, Partner, Consulting – ESG Strategy & Integration at Pickering Energy Partners, and Sarah Borg-Olivier, Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President at Instar Asset Management for a discussion on the practical considerations surrounding ESG. 

Read about how institutional investors, proxy advisors, society, and asset managers are using their voting power to influence companies to adopt Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) governance factors and goals.

In a previously held webinar titled, "Social Innovation in a New World," Christopher Marquis, a professor who teaches about sustainable enterprises and management at the Cornell SCJ Johnson College of Business and author of Better Business: How the B Corp Movement Is Remaking Capitalism, and Benjamin Stone, a Mintz corporate attorney and a former social entrepreneur and executive, engage in a broad discussion of the social innovation landscape.

Environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) investing has experienced quite the regulatory roller coaster in recent years.