Top 10 takeaways from the latest sustainability reports

Here are the “top 10” takeaways from Teneo’s excellent annual survey of sustainability reports:

01: The acronym “ESG” is down but certainly not out. The most common key word in 2024 report titles was “Sustainability” (39%), overtaking last year’s leader “ESG” (24%, down from 35% in 2023). However, the “ESG” acronym appeared 62 times within 2024 Sustainability Reports on average, and most companies that dropped “ESG” from their 2024 report title used it within their 2024 report.

02: Sustainability reports are getting longer, not shorter. The length of 2024 Sustainability Reports increased for the third year in a row, averaging 83 pages (up 20% from an average of 70 pages in 2021). There was a broad range of page lengths in 2024 Sustainability Reports, with the shortest being 15 pages and the longest being 211 pages.

03: More companies are now living in a double material world. Almost 80% of companies conducted a materiality assessment – about the same percentage as last year. However, the number of companies that have completed (or were in the process of completing) “double” materiality assessments tripled from 9% in 2023 to 27% in 2024.

04: CEOs are increasingly accountable for ESG strategies. CEOs were noted as ultimately responsible for company ESG strategies 32% of the time – almost double the amount in 2023 (18%). Like last year, CEOs signed a supermajority of 2024 Sustainability Report cover letters with other executives (e.g., Chief Sustainability Officers) also signing cover letters about a quarter of the time.

05: [DE]I will survive. Despite current challenges to these efforts, 94% of companies continued to use the term “DEI” in some form within their ESG reports, a very modest decrease from last year. Among those that adjusted their disclosure practices, most opted to restructure their sections to focus more broadly on themes of belonging and inclusion, rather than removing the DEI section entirely.

06: Sustainability reports are being issued with less pomp but with more circumstance. The number of companies issuing press releases with 2024 Sustainability Reports was down significantly (49%) from when we first started tracking this in 2021 (75%). However, ESG microsites are ubiquitous, providing stakeholders with a variety of opportunities to interact with a company’s ESG initiatives.

07: The EU CSRD and IFRS disclosure frameworks begin to surface. Mentions of the EU CSRD disclosure framework increased from 0% in 2023 to 13% in 2024, while 5% of companies mentioned the IFRS. SASB and TCFD sustainability disclosure frameworks continue to dominate with approximately 90% prevalence, with the GRI (73%) and UN SDGs (64%) also continuing to be widespread.

08: External assurance increasingly includes “Social” data points. The percentage of companies obtaining external assurance of at least one ESG data point held steady at 62%. However, more companies added social data points when getting environmental data assured 32% of the time in 2024, up from 22% in 2023.

09: Company ESG goals are in a transition phase. Fewer companies provided an ESG goals progress section in 2024 (36%) than in 2023 (46%). Accordingly, the number of companies signaling that at least one ESG goal was “off-track” dropped from 22% in 2023 to 8% in 2024.

10: Responsible AI enters the ESG chat. Approximately 21% of companies notes its responsible use of AI within its 2024 Sustainability Report. While this is the first time we have tracked this data point, we expect this trend to significantly grow in the coming years.