ESGJune 18, 20268 min
The Certification Problem No One Talks About
Certifications are treated as proof. But a certification tells you a company met a standard at a point in time. It does not tell you what happened after.
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No fluff. No frequency promises. Substance when we have something worth saying.
Certifications are treated as proof. But a certification tells you a company met a standard at a point in time. It does not tell you what happened after.
Read article →A company can be transparent about poor performance. Another can perform well but disclose nothing. Treating these the same collapses the two most important signals in ESG evaluation.
The framing of ESG as ethical investing has done more damage than greenwashing itself. ESG is material risk analysis. When fiduciaries ignore it, they are not being pragmatic. They are being negligent.
The first reaction is always legal. The second is PR. The third, if you are lucky, is the question that should have come first: is the evaluation correct?
The EU, UK, US, and Singapore have each moved from voluntary ESG guidance to active enforcement. The differences matter less than the direction.
The narrative of handmade is warmth, authenticity, direct impact. The reality is more complicated.
Checklists reward completion. Frameworks reward evidence. The difference is whether you are measuring effort or outcome.
Most corporate net-zero pledges are approved at board level. Fewer than 20% have board-level mechanisms to track progress.
When a company publishes its own sustainability report, it is not providing evidence. It is making claims.
The offset market was built on a premise that turned out to be largely false: that paying someone else to reduce emissions is equivalent to reducing your own.
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