Compensating for ESG: Challenges and Considerations

Jared Berman, Partner at Meridian Compensation Partners, is the featured expert on this episode of The Executive Compensation podcast. Jared has more than 15 years of consulting experience in executive compensation and corporate governance matters.

This episode focuses on ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) metrics, non-financial factors that help companies measure sustainability and social impact. Investors are increasingly prioritizing these initiatives, especially in light of recent social and cultural events.

Jared discusses the challenges companies face in compensating for these initiatives. Some metrics (e.g. carbon emissions) are easy to track and compare on a regular basis. Social initiatives like diversity and inclusion are more difficult to quantify, making it difficult to measure progress and compensate accordingly.

He also provides an overview of how ESG metrics might fit into annual and long-term incentive plans, including the benefits and drawbacks of each approach. The episode wraps with some advice on choosing which metrics to measure. Rather than going with what’s trending, he recommends companies look inward, identify specific problems, determine desired outcomes, and develop performance metrics accordingly.

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