Strategic Intelligence: GlobalData's ESG Framework (2026)

Strategic Intelligence: The analyst's ESG Framework (2026)

Summary

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) is a framework used to assess and improve a business's sustainability and responsibility. Failure to cultivate strong responses to ESG concerns will expose companies to significant ESG risk. This includes physical, regulatory, market, financing, and reputational ESG risk.

Key Highlights

• In the last decade, the ESG landscape has shifted from a focus on the environment, highlighting best practices with a moral center, to one of necessity, shaped by a political landscape that is rolling back ESG policies.
• For corporations, ESG is no longer a nice-to-have; it is vital for protecting against a host of risks and for allowing companies to remain resilient as environmental and political climates change.

Scope

• The analyst’s ESG framework equips companies to understand ESG risk. Each dimension of ESG has associated risk factors that, if not managed and mitigated appropriately, could expose your company to physical, regulatory, market, financing, and reputational risk.

Reasons to Buy

• The analyst’s proprietary ESG framework is designed to help companies build trust with society at large and set them on a path towards a sustainable future.
• By adopting this holistic approach to responsible business, which encompasses all environmental, social, and governance issues, company leaders can ensure that all aspects of sustainability are factored into their business strategy. Without specific provisions and plans for each ESG factor in our framework, companies will find themselves exposed to significant risk. In the long term, unmitigated ESG risk will harm companies’ bottom lines and leave them worse off than their competitors.