The Materiality of ESG Factors Specialization

In this course, you will analyze the importance of assessing stakeholder interest or salience in different ESG factors and industry variances. You will also evaluate the importance of ESG factors in your investment decisions, including how you can use them to create socially responsible portfolios with better-than-average returns. You will also examine the risks associated with ESG investing and how they can affect the corporation’s profitability.

Next, you will review the concepts of positive and negative screening and identify the ESG factors that cause investors to divest from or negatively screen certain assets. You will review ESG risks associated with climate, diversity, executive compensation, governance issues, and evaluate how corporate performance and stock prices correlate to ESG scores. You will also examine how ESG adoption could accelerate the growing trend of fossil fuel divestment, its minimal impact on returns, and what this means long term. Finally, you will analyze quantitative and qualitative measurements and explore different protocols, such as MSCI, to evaluate and provide ESG ratings that can affect stakeholder and investor interest. By the end of this course, you will have explored how ESG investing has grown, assessed the variety of ways it has been integrated into the market, and analyzed the complex indexing and measurement techniques employed in the ESG space today.

In this course, you will focus on understanding climate change and the risks and opportunities that it creates for businesses in the 21st century. You will analyze the current impacts of climate change on a global scale, and the investment shifts that are required to achieve a net-zero economy. Next, you will analyze the role of climate disclosures and their importance in ESG.

You will also review private environmental governance, the active role that private companies are playing in combating climate change, and the parallels between the public and private sectors. Additionally, you will assess the insurance industry and the ways that it spreads risk, as well as creative ways that insurance as a form of private or public governance can build climate resilience. In the final module, you will review the concept of greenwashing: what is driving firms to make exaggerated environmental claims, why it is harmful, and examples of enforcement actions. Finally, you will learn about the importance of product stewardship. By the end of this course, you will have a thorough understanding of public and private environmental governance, the financial risks that unmitigated climate change is creating, climate disclosures, and innovative ways that business leaders can view and implement climate solutions.

In this course, you will get an overview of the impact of contemporary ESG ratings and how a company balances ESG issues against its financial performance. You will evaluate the effectiveness of corporate authenticity and the impacts of politics when building corporate ESG policy. You will also learn about social activism’s ability to disrupt markets, and the roles that stakeholders play when dealing with financial markets.

Next, you will learn about corporate Boards, and the importance of creating independent Directors that can maintain neutrality to protect the interests of both the business and shareholders. You will also learn how Board structure is managed, methods for selecting Board members, and the role that Boards play when crafting ESG policy. Lastly, you will look at the necessity of creating a diverse and inclusive culture within an organization and will examine best practices for boards to create strong crisis and risk management policies. By the end of this course, you will have a comprehensive understanding of how social activism affects the corporate world in the 21st century, how to build a Board of Directors that can incorporate ESG issues into risk management and governance strategies, and how encouraging diverse and inclusive culture benefits companies.