Various labels are given to what are essentially non-
financial performance drivers of an organization, for
example sustainability, corporate social responsibility
(CSR), non-financial factors, and extra-financial
factors. Defining sustainability and the business case
is covered in the IFAC Sustainability Framework 2.0,
which refers to the economic, environmental, and
social aspects of organizational performance where:
• economic performance continues to include
financial performance, but will increasingly
reflect an organization’s wider impact on the
economy, which allows organizations and
stakeholders to recognize that profitability,
growth, and job creation lead to compensation
and benefits for families, and to tax generation
for governments;
• environmental performance relates to the natural
resources consumed in delivering products and
services and environmental impact; and
• social performance reflects an organization’s
impact on people and social issues, which
include (a) health, skills, and motivation on
the people side, (b) human relationships and
partnerships on the social side, and (c) business
conduct and ethics.
The term ESG has emerged, primarily in
the investment community, to describe the
environmental, social, and governance issues that
investors are considering in the context of corporate
behavior and performance, and which they might
consider in their investment decisions. The Financial
Times Lexicon describes ESG as “a generic term
used in capital markets and used by investors to
evaluate corporate behaviour and to determine the
future financial performance of companies.”5