ESG is a popular term in business, but much misunderstood and misused.Greenwashing and competence washing are more prevalent than many would admit. How is corporate South Africa approaching ESG? The second Henley-Risk Insights Report “The state of ESG strategic integration in JSE listed companies”, based on an extensive survey of 63 large JSE-listed companies in various sectors suggests that ESG is still significantly “fast talk and slow walk”.

Specifically, the research shows how companies focus their attention on “internal capability building” and social factors, but resist pursuing more fundamental strategic change for accelerating ESG capability and performance such as alliances,  mergers and acquisitions, changes in distributions channels, new product development or asset divestment.

Even internal capability building for ESG reportedly faces significant challenges such as pressures on quarterly earnings and fight for resources among business units. These results suggest corporate boards in South Africa are not providing the long-term resource allocation framework for sustained ESG performance, possibly because ESG is not truly seen as a core competitive requirement.