Professor Tensie Whelan, director of the New York University Stern School of Business Center for Sustainable Business, will be joining ESG Clarity on Twitter on Sept. 18 to answer questions about sustainability issues and engaging businesses.
Please tune in at 9 a.m. EST to ask the professor — formerly president of the Rainforest Alliance and executive director of the New York League of Conservation Voters — about how she sees sustainability driving business and societal success based on her 25 years of experience engaging companies in proactive and innovative approaches.
Her center has created a methodology to help companies recognize how they are making money on their sustainability investments. The goal is for CFOs and investors to use its Return on Sustainability Investment (ROSI) tools to develop metrics that allow them to better integrate, track, and report on corporate financial performance that comes from embedding ESG into business practices. She envisions managers making better decisions on sustainability issues and investors gaining more actionable information.
The center also teamed with Information Resources Inc. to analyze consumer purchasing to show that products marketed as sustainable are responsible for half the growth in consumer products from 2015 through 2019. Brand managers, therefore, that do not pursue sustainable strategies will fall behind, she contends.
With her expertise she is able to answer readers’ questions on:
- What benefits can a firm expect to attain through embedding sustainability into its practices?
- How do sustainability strategies actually drive higher profitability and a lower cost of capital?
- Where does society benefit from these corporate changes?
- Is there a lack of ESG data or a just a dearth of useful ESG data?
- Will COVID-19 put pressure on Americans’ willingness to buy green?
The live Q&A is an initiative from ESG Clarity to boost interaction between the in-house team and our readers, as well as connect them with ESG investing experts. In our most recent edition, readers posted their questions to Harvard Business School’s impact investing expert Vikram Gandhi – you can view the full Q&A here.
ESG Clarity invites you to submit your questions to Professor Whelan by Tweeting a post including your question, to our handle @ESGClarity and the hashtag #AskProfessorWhelan. This can done either before Sept. 18, or during the online event.
Alternatively, readers can submit questions to Liz Skinner at LSkinner@InvestmentNews.com with #AskProfessorWhelan in the subject line.
