CEO paychecks rarely on the line when it comes to being green, “Bloomberg Business”
New York, USA – While dozens of the world’s largest companies have signed pledges urging “the world’s leaders to reach an ambitious climate deal” at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, and vowed to reduce their businesses’ environmental impact, only a handful put CEO pay on the line.
Of the 89 publicly traded signers of three compacts as of Nov. 13 - the American Business Act on Climate Pledge, the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative and the CEO Climate Leaders pact - 13 have tied sustainability efforts to a specific portion of their CEO’s compensation, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
Sustainability Agendas
Make-more-by-cutting programs can be effective for boards that want to put teeth into sustainability agendas and respond to pressure from investors, governments and consumers to consider their companies’ environmental footprints, said Conrad Pramboeck, Head of Compensation Consulting at Executive Search firm Pedersen & Partners. It’s not a complicated calculus, he said. “Because money is a motivator for many top executives, they become interested in pushing this issue forward.”