Thank you to the Calgary M&A Club for giving me an opportunity to share our perspectives and experience in using ESG to increase the performance and value of a business. ESG is building on the prior work around conscious capitalism and in fact we propose that ESG was developed as a tool by investors to measure the level of conscious performance of a business as the research around conscious capitalism showed that conscious businesses create up to 10x the value of their greed is good competitors. Regardless of your opinion on ESG the fact is that it can have a significant impact on a business's valuation. It can be a great strategy for sellers to justify a higher value for their business or for buyers to negotiate a lower value if a business lacks ESG strategy and execution. A recent McKinsey article "Does ESG Really Matter & Why" outlines that there are lots of opinions and skeptics around ESG, but it is a social wave that is transforming the world and businesses must adapt if they don't want to get left behind.
Attached below you can download the presentation and the last page has lots of great links to other resources about ESG and its effect in the M&A sector.