On 19 March the WEF with Boston Consulting Group publishes a white paper on “The New Age of Materiality: Harnessing the Pace of Change in ESG”. It notes a new trend for investors to build their capacity to more accurately assess which environmental and social issues will become material over time, and integrate these forward‐looking perspectives into investment decisions. It argues that in an era of hyper‐transparency, the rate at which currently immaterial issues become material is accelerating. It presents a framework with four key drivers of the growing dynamism in ESG materiality. The drivers are growth in evidence and transparency, escalating stakeholder activism, growing responsiveness of key decision-makers, and greater emphasis on ESG by investors. It notes that there are signs of convergence on how ESG performance is measured (among investors and rating agencies).
