Abstract

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting has become a mainstay of corporate and investment decision-making, although not without controversy. Corporations are increasingly making ESG disclosures to assess and limit risks, to bolster their reputations, and to attract and keep customers. But one group of companies is significantly behind on moving toward meaningfully achieving ESG goals: large, investor-owned electric utilities (IOUs). IOUs are critical to the clean energy transition through mitigating their climate change impacts. While they claim to be increasingly focused on the environmental and social aspects of their actions, they are hampering progress on climate change. This Article is the first to describe the intersecting reasons why utilities’ ESG commitments fall short of supporting the clean energy transition and the first to suggest a remedy. Utilities’ ESG disclosures are inadequate and lack transparency, and utilities are not meeting the limited commitments they have made to reduce carbon emissions. Also, unlike other public corporations, utilities are monopolies governed by state public utility commissions (PUCs), which amplifies the effects of utilities’ wide-ranging abuses of the regulatory system.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

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