When it comes to corporate transparency, the United States is at a crossroads. To one side is maintaining the status quo, with a patchy reporting landscape for environmental, social and governance (ESG) information.

An Examination of Proposals to Improve Environmental, Social, and Governance Disclosures I thank the Subcommittee for inviting me to appear at today’s hearing.

An FT article on 2 April carried sweeping claims by Hans Hoogervorst, chair of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), that ‘greenwashing is rampant’ in sustainability reporting.

In the last two decades, sustainability reporting has gone from an exercise for the largest companies to a necessity to attract investors and meet local and international regulation.

I have always believed that business has the power to help us solve society’s most pressing challenges. That’s why I worked in corporate responsibility functions in the private sector for more than 20 years.

The transparency that comes from corporate responsibility reporting can help us create a better world. That was my message to the people I met at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual meeting in Davos.

The headline to this article is a sobering assessment, but it’s accurate. In the last issue of ESG Magazine, I wrote about how we can get more investors engaged with the SDGs.

When we think about companies and the work they do, we often lose sight of a simple fact: a business is just a collection of people. And, all groups of people tend to build a culture, a collective way of viewing the world.

After two decades working as a CSR professional and just three months leading GRI, I’m more convinced than ever that transparency is a powerful force for change. But I’m also just as convinced that we are still far from end goal: sustainable development.

Ernst Ligteringen’s sudden and unexpected death on June 15th was a devastating shock for me and my colleagues at GRI, the sustainability non-profit that Ernst led for more than 12 years.