Take control of SRI/ESG investor communications
A ten-step guide to effective (mainstream-IR-aligned) investor communications on sustainability.
Following this should enable companies to halve the amount of time they spend on SRI/ESG communications and double their reach and effectiveness.
An SRI investor ‘roadshow’ is time set aside by a company to present their sustainability performance directly to SRI analysts and portfolio managers and to answer their questions.
(A ‘roadshow’ previously required company management literally to ‘hit the road’ and visit investors in person. Now, they are as likely to set out along the ‘information superhighway’ and use teleconferences, webcasts and other virtual tools to communicate their messages)
On a roadshow, companies should aim to meet (‘face-to-face’ or ‘screen-to-screen’) with investors and analysts from all parts of the SRI value chain:
- Buy-side asset managers and engaged asset owners
- Sell-side & SRI agency analysts
Indeed, the skill in organising an effective roadshow lies in finding an effective balance between:
- 1-on-1 meetings and group meetings
- Presentations to buy-side asset managers and to sell-side & SRI agency analysts
- Face-to-face and virtual meetings
Meetings with buy-side analysts & portfolio managers
Companies are increasingly using SRI roadshows to communicate directly, efficiently and in-depth with buy-side analysts and portfolio managers.
Typically, this component of a roadshow is organised (and paid for) by a sponsoring ‘sell-side’ broker.
Meetings with ‘sell-side’ and SRI agency analysts
Companies, however, still rely on questionnaires, printed reports and ad hoc conversations to communicate with highly-influential, 'sell-side' and 'SRI agency' analysts. This is inefficient and potentially-damages the company’s standing within the SRI community.
To improve the quality of research written about them and to reduce the administrative burden on both sides, companies should also include meetings with sell-side analysts and SRI agencies within their SRI roadshows.
Although companies would have to organise these ‘sell-side’ and ‘agency’ meetings themselves (or pay a consultant to do it), we expect that these modest costs would be offset many times over by the time-savings in a company’s overall SRI communications programme (including questionnaires!)
Prioritisation
As a rough guide, we suggest that companies spend:
- 2/3 of their roadshow time with buy-side analysts and portfolio managers and,
- 1/3 with the sell-side & agency analysts
