Nearly all companies in the S&P 500 now report on sustainability

The rate of sustainability reporting in the S&P 500 has reached a record 99%, while 94% of Russell 1000 companies also provide sustainability disclosures.

This is according to the Governance & Accountability (G&A) Institute, which tracks how many of the largest US-listed companies report on sustainability every year. The research shows continued increases in sustainability reporting in 2024.

A record 94% of Russell 1000 companies reported on sustainability in 2024, up from 93% in 2023, while the S&P 500 (the larger half of the Russell 1000) is nearing 100%, compared to 98.6% in 2023. 

Sustainability reporting firms in the smaller half by market cap of the Russell 1000 (mid-cap companies with approximately US$2 billion-US$4 billion in market cap) reached 90%, compared to 87% in 2023.

Hank Boerner, G&A's Chairman, Chief Strategist and Co-Founder, said: "At the heart of sustainability disclosure is a better understanding of risk and reward - something investors and stakeholders deeply appreciate. Despite the anti-ESG pushback in some quarters, corporate America continues to innovate and push forward with more detailed and informative reporting on a widening range of topics. Companies on the leading edge of this trend are well positioned for upcoming shifts from voluntary to mandatory sustainability reporting in a growing number of jurisdictions."

SASB remains the most widely used ESG reporting standard

When it comes to reporting standards used by companies to develop their sustainability reports, 82% of Russell 1000 reporters aligned with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), compared to 81% in 2023 and just 12% in 2019.

But TCFD reporting also continued to increase, with 65% of Russell 1000 reporters aligning with it in 2024, compared to 60% in 2023 and only 4% in 2019. Companies are also increasingly aligning their sustainability reports to the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB): 17% of firms used this emerging standard last year.

At the same time, companies aligning with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) remained consistent between 2023 and 2024, at around 55% of the Russell 1000. 

Louis Coppola, G&A's Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, commented: "Over the past 14 years, our Trends research has chronicled how America's largest public companies adopted sustainability reporting as a best practice because stakeholders demanded it, not because regulators required it. While policies may shift in Washington or Brussels, the fundamental reasons for sustainability reporting do not: the reporting process helps leaders sharpen strategy, strengthen resilience, understand risk, allocate capital, create value and build trust."