On the advent of environmental, social and governance reporting and its intersection with privacy

Martijn Ten Bloemendal
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Martijn Ten Bloemendal: Global Privacy Counsel, AbbVie, The Netherlands

Journal of Data Protection & Privacy, 2021, vol. 5, issue 1, 39-49

Abstract: An emerging area of regulation in the form of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting is aimed at long-term sustainability and addressing the challenges of climate change and social inequality. This paper explores how ESG reporting intersects in interesting ways with well-established privacy principles under the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation. The paper analyses these privacy implications in the context of the first formal ESG law of comprehensive scope — the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation — as well as existing global ESG disclosure standards. In particular the ‘S’ of ESG encompasses issues in the employment context relating to gender equality and diversity and inclusion (D&I), thereby implicating sensitive personal data and complicating the collection of such data. In addition, the paper looks towards the question of whether there is, or should be, a ‘P’ of privacy incorporated in ESG and considers the potential development of measurable privacy metrics for this purpose.

Keywords: ESG; GDPR; Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR); Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB); Global Reporting Initiative (GRI); gender; race; ethnicity; diversity and inclusion; sensitive data; employee data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aza:jdpp00:y:2021:v:5:i:1:p:39-49

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