Library | ESG issues
Community Engagement & Relations
Community engagement and relations is a strategic process that fosters meaningful collaboration between organisations and community members to achieve long-term, sustainable outcomes. It involves various engagement methods, such as co-design, focus groups, and surveys, to understand community perspectives and build inclusive solutions. Key areas include economic development, employment opportunities, strengthening relations with Indigenous and rural communities, and poverty alleviation. Effective engagement enhances social license, corporate reputation, and long-term value creation, shaping investment strategies and risk management.
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Governance: Hard to build, easy to erode: Global trends, business implications and the role of employer and business membership organizations
This report analyses global governance trends from 1996 to 2024, revealing widespread stagnation and persistent risks of backsliding. It highlights the critical link between stable institutional governance, increased foreign direct investment, and the necessary role of business membership organisations in sustaining long-term policy reforms.
Transforming the urban climate project preparation ecosystem: Emerging findings on how enhanced collaboration can deliver greater coherence, efficiency and impact
The report examines weaknesses in urban climate project preparation and argues that stronger coordination between cities, financiers and support organisations could improve coherence, efficiency and project impact. It identifies structural and operational barriers and proposes collaborative reforms to strengthen climate finance delivery.
Building the financial case for urban adaptation: Guidance and case studies
C40 and Rebel outline how cities can structure urban adaptation projects to attract private finance, using ten case studies. Bankability depends on revenue logic, risk allocation, public de-risking, early financier engagement and credible monitoring.
IFC's performance standards on environmental and social sustainability
The IFC Performance Standards (2012) form part of the Sustainability Framework, setting requirements for clients to identify, manage, and mitigate environmental and social risks in financed projects. They comprise eight standards covering areas such as labour, resource efficiency, biodiversity, and community impacts, and are widely used as a global benchmark for responsible investment.
Forever wild series
This series outlines the Forever Wild Initiative’s approach to financing and managing large-scale wilderness landscapes through blended capital models, community co-design, and nature-based enterprises. It documents the development of equitable nature finance structures that integrate conservation, economic activity, and social outcomes across landscapes.
Driving positive social change through co-operatives and mutual enterprises (CMEs)
This guide explains how co-operatives and mutual enterprises can support social change through democratic governance, member focus and long-term value. It argues they can improve stability, competition and sustainability in finance, while noting challenges including regulation, capital raising and market awareness.
Strengthening the S in ESG series
Strengthening the S in ESG is a research series examining the design and use of social indicators and metrics within ESG frameworks. It provides guidance and analysis to improve how companies’ impacts on people are measured, supporting more decision-useful insights for investors and better alignment with real business practices.
Human rights due diligence in the financial sector: A compendium of industry case studies and practice
Examines how financial institutions implement human rights due diligence, aligned with UNGPs and OECD guidelines, using case studies. Highlights challenges in data, prioritisation and leverage, and emphasises integrating human rights into governance, risk processes and client engagement to manage impacts across lending, investment and insurance activities.
Engaging the public on climate risks and adaptation: A briefing for UK communicators
This briefing summarises UK public attitudes to climate risks and adaptation, highlighting rising concern, strong policy support, and the importance of communication strategies. It emphasises linking climate impacts to lived experience, health, and values to strengthen public engagement and support for adaptation and mitigation.
Communicating effectively with the centre-right about household energy-efficiency and renewable energy technologies
Report presents UK qualitative research on centre-right attitudes to energy efficiency and renewables, finding trust deficits and scepticism. Messaging aligned with values—avoiding waste, local control, and authenticity—resonates best, while economic or corporate framing underperforms. Emphasises credible messengers and community-based approaches.
Communicating environmental and sustainability science: Challenges, opportunities, and the changing political context
Synthesises research on communicating environmental and sustainability science, highlighting a shift from one-way information to dialogue. Identifies challenges including political polarisation, trust, and misinformation, and emphasises values-based framing, narratives, and audience engagement as critical for effective public communication and future research priorities.
Communicating climate impacts through adaptation: Tips and activities for women's institute climate ambassadors
Guide outlines evidence-based strategies for communicating climate impacts through adaptation, emphasising values-led narratives, trusted messengers, and relatable imagery. It provides practical activities and case studies enabling community engagement on risks such as flooding, drought and heatwaves, encouraging locally relevant, action-oriented responses.
Private doubts, collective conformity: the Power and fragility of climate narratives
This article examines why current climate frameworks persist despite widespread professional skepticism, highlighting institutional incentives and “preference falsification” as key drivers. It calls for more open, cross-sector dialogue focused on diagnosing real problems and unlocking practical, system-level solutions.
Frozen gas, boiling planet: How bank and investor support for LNG is fueling a climate disaster
The report analyses bank and investor financing of LNG expansion, finding US$213 billion in bank support and US$252 billion in investor exposure since 2021. It concludes this financing drives overcapacity, climate risk and misalignment with 1.5 °C pathways.
Systems-informed stewardship part II: Bringing a systems perspective to stewardship
This article applies a systems lens to stewardship, arguing that fragmented intermediation and entrenched short-term time horizons undermine sustainability outcomes. It calls for recognising these structural barriers as a critical step toward more effective, systems-informed stewardship.
Sustainable Finance Roundup January 2026: Geopolitics, Energy Transitions, and Systemic Risk
This month’s sustainable finance article roundup examines a landscape increasingly shaped by geopolitics and climate risk, as near-term fragmentation, energy security, and affordability pressures collide with intensifying long-term threats from climate change, biodiversity loss, and water stress. The works featured analyse how these dynamics are reshaping capital allocation, disclosure, and resilience planning, demonstrating the growing need for sustainable finance to integrate geopolitical risk with real-economy transition.
