Governance & Accountability Institute (G&A), a leading consulting firm on sustainability and ESG, today announced the findings of its 2021 Sustainability Reporting in Focus research on sustainability reporting trends among companies in the S&P 500® Index and the Russell 1000® Index. The report marked the 10th anniversary of G&A’s research series tracking the publication of sustainability reports by the largest U.S. public companies.

When analyzing the reporting trends of the entire Russell 1000 Index, we broke out the companies into the larger and smaller halves of the index by market cap. The largest half by market cap of the Russell 1000 Index generally comprises the same companies as the S&P 500 Index.  G&A’s research found that 92% of the S&P 500 companies published a sustainability report in 2020, up from 90% in 2019.  This research shows that corporate sustainability reporting has clearly been adopted as a best practice by the largest U.S. public companies.

For the entire Russell 1000 Index, our research found that 70% of the Russell 1000 companies published a sustainability report in 2020, up from 65% in 2019.  The number of reporters in the smallest half by market cap of the Russell 1000 index rose to 49% in 2020 from 39% in 2019, showing that corporate sustainability reporting is increasingly being adopted as a best practice by mid-cap companies.

Download the report (on request)