Quarterly earnings calls present an opportunity for businesses to share how their long-term financial performance is tied to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. They can overcome obstacles to discussing ESG in these calls by laying the groundwork for interest in ESG, adapting the call schedule, explaining and reporting on the return on ESG investment, developing cross-functional collaborations, and staging the call as theater.

By now most companies have committed to sustainability efforts--and yet many CFOs still see those efforts as a cost rather than a source of value. That makes it hard to unlock the internal financing needed to scale them up. The authors--the director and a senior scholar at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business--have developed the Return on Sustainability Investment (ROSI) analytic tool, which companies can use to measure the financial returns on their sustainability activities. Implementing ROSI is a five-step process. Companies should (1) identify their current sustainability strategies, (2) identify related changes in operational or management practices, (3) determine the resulting benefits, (4) quantify the benefits, and (5) calculate the monetary value. The savings and growth thus revealed can reach hundreds of millions of dollars; in large companies, it can be billions. Particularly now, as companies scrutinize budgets threatened by the Covid-19 pandemic, ROSI analysis can help CFOs improve organizational finances through sustainability investments that create value for investors, employees, customers, and the world at large.