Harvard Business Review (February 15)
“A uniform set of standards for measurement and reporting — just as we have for financial performance” is essential for communicating ESG performance. “Imagine a world where each company had to decide for itself how to measure say, revenues, or depreciate its assets…. That is the situation companies have been living in when it comes to ESG — but there is hope on the horizon.” The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) has emerged as the “forerunner… to offer a single source of truth of ESG reporting.”
Tags: Assets, Depreciate, ESG, Financial performance, ISSB, Measurement, Reporting, Revenues, Standards, Uniform
Financial Times (December 9)
“The Big Four accounting firms have recorded their strongest financial performance since the collapse of Enron as corporate clients rushed to transform their businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.” Revenues soared to over $167 billion, collectively, in spite of “continued criticism of the structure and performance of the firms, especially in audits, including scrutiny of EY’s failure to identify fraud at Wirecard.”
Tags: Accounting firms, Audits, Big Four, Clients, Collapse, Coronavirus, Criticism, Enron, EY, Failure, Financial performance, Fraud, Pandemic, Revenues, Scrutiny, Transform
The Economist (July 15)
While it is unlikely to solely account for all of the weakness in productivity plaguing developed countries, “there is a growing belief that the persistence of zombie firms—companies that keep operating despite a poor financial performance—may explain the weak productivity performance of developed economies in recent years.”
