Nowadays, a company’s larger story is more than just its quarterly figures. New requirements—from both governments and those who do business—are putting more emphasis on sustainability. A new report from EY shows almost seven in 10 investors are asking more questions about sustainability metrics today than two years ago.
Since the responsibility for sustainability reporting almost always falls to the CFO, it’s time for financial teams to get comfortable with these metrics. However, there is a significant lack of confidence in them. Fewer than half of CFOs think it’s “very likely” their companies will meet time-based sustainability targets, like reaching net zero emissions by a specific date. And 55% of CFOs feel that any sustainability reporting they do will be seen as containing elements of “greenwashing”—using deceptive means to make a company seem more environmentally friendly than it actually is.
What should a CFO do about it? Bring strategy and scrutiny to the table, EY suggests. Many metrics CFOs are traditionally concerned with dealing with finances and numbers have been calculated since the beginning of business recordkeeping. Sustainability is much newer. And unlike many of the numbers that finance departments regularly crunch, in many cases, the best way to measure sustainability metrics and goals is still being determined. “As CFOs become more involved in sustainability reporting, their awareness of the immaturity of the reporting mechanisms used in the nonfinancial area has grown,” Matt Bell, EY global climate change and sustainability services leader, said in the report.
CFOs who dive into what’s behind sustainability reporting—what is being planned, what actual cost savings and ROI may come from it and the true environmental impact—can do a better job of showing how companies are meeting goals. For the most part, sustainability reporting in the past has had no standards and companies could say what they wanted. There are now disclosure rules in the EU, and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new rules announced earlier this year are being challenged in court. But even without these guidelines, the CFO’s analytical mindset, as well as a focus on things like cost savings and ROI, can do a lot to improve the metrics that the public and investors see.
The IMA—Association of Accountants and Financial Professionals in Business—recently issued a report about why CFOs are best suited for this job. I spoke with Brigitte de Graaff, chair emeritus of the IMA’s Sustainable Business Management Committee, about what CFOs need to do to make sustainability fit into their job descriptions and analyses. A portion of our conversation is later in this newsletter.
HUMAN CAPITAL
Throughout 2024, almost every week has been another bad one for Boeing, but last week was particularly bad. On Wednesday, the company released its quarterly earnings, which were in the red across the board. And then Boeing’s latest contract proposal, offering 35% pay increases to the striking union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, was rejected by 64% of membership. The now-seven-week walkout has left the aerospace company at a standstill, leading Boeing’s new CEO Kelly Ortberg to quickly try to balance the budget with additional layoffs and furloughs. In remarks with the earnings report, Ortberg said it is time to shift Boeing’s culture, working to more closely integrate all employees with the company’s first mission and business, writes Forbes senior contributor Jim Osman. On Monday, Boeing said in regulatory filings it’s planning a stock sale to raise $19 billion—something Wells Fargo analysts said only covers Boeing’s near-term needs in a note reported by the New York Times.
Is that enough? Time will tell, though Forbes’ Jeremy Bogaisky writes about another way the company could make a change to get back on track: Reinstate the employee pension plan. The pension plan has been a central issue to the strike since its beginning, and benefits experts told Bogaisky that now would be a good time to bring one back: Economic conditions, regulatory changes and new guidelines that reduce risk for companies are on the way. Not to mention a pension plan will drive more employee loyalty since workers would want to spend their entire career at Boeing to take full advantage of the benefit.
LEGAL ISSUES
Federal regulators hit three big companies with massive fines last week for failing to protect consumers. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued Apple and Goldman Sachs a total of more than $89 million in penalties and refunds—$25 million for Apple, $45 million in a fine for Goldman, plus an additional $19.8 million in refunds and discounts for Goldman—stemming from problems with the two companies’ Apple Card partnership. According to the order, Apple failed to send tens of thousands of consumer disputes of transactions to Goldman, which didn’t follow federal requirements to investigate them. Both companies also misled consumers about interest-free payment plans, with many paying interest because they weren’t automatically enrolled. Both Apple and Goldman told Forbes they have addressed these issues, but the CFPB has banned Goldman from launching new Apple Cards until it can provide a “credible plan” that they will comply with the law.
American Airlines was fined $50 million by the Department of Transportation last week for “numerous serious violations” of laws protecting passengers with disabilities, writes Forbes’ Suzanne Rowan Kelleher. During the five-year period of the government’s investigation, the Transportation Department said the airline mishandled thousands of wheelchairs by damaging them or delaying their return to passengers who relied on them. The fine—which is 25 times larger than the biggest previous fine for disability protection violations, and represents about 6% of American Airlines’ earnings last year—is to be split in half, with $25 million going to the U.S. Treasury, and $25 million to be spent on infrastructure and employees to reduce wheelchair-related incidents and compensate affected passengers during the investigation period. American said it has already invested $175 million this year alone in helping disabled passengers fly with their required equipment, and that fewer than one in 1,000 disabled customers complained about their service on the airline.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
A week from the presidential election, the candidates are crisscrossing the country to make their closing arguments to voters, and analysts are making their final calculations to decipher what the policy platforms would mean in practice. Former President Donald Trump has proposed some radically different economic policies than those in recent generations, including adding huge tariffs on everything the U.S. imports—a general tariff on all goods—potentially 20%, and a higher one for China—potentially 60%. Forbes contributor Andrew Leahey writes that the U.S. relied on tariffs for income in the late 19th century, which resulted in making goods much more expensive for consumers. Historically, Leahey wrote, tariffs get passed along by the companies that need to pay them, meaning that items all cost more if they have any foreign-made components. In 1890, Congress passed the first federal income tax as a remedy for crushing tariffs.
Many analysts believe tariffs would have a similar impact on the economy today. A recent analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that the tariffs proposed by Trump would increase household taxes by an average of nearly $3,000 starting next year, lowering average after-tax incomes by 2.9%, writes Forbes senior contributor Howard Gleckman. It would also reduce imports by about $9 trillion over 10 years. UBS estimated the tariffs could also depress the stock market, potentially pushing the S&P 500 down 10% in 2025.
Vice President Kamala Harris does not plan to increase tariffs. She plans to increase federal revenues through higher taxes for higher-income individuals, expanding capital gains taxes for those who earn more, and pushing up corporate tax rates.
Content retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cfo/2024/10/29/why-sustainability-fits-the-cfos-job-description/.
