In his Keynote, Professor Eccles will discuss the increasingly heated debate about the concept of ESG (environment, social, and governance). The term now means very different things to people of very different ideologies, raising the question of whether it’s still a useful concept. This debate about ESG, essentially a debate about the role of the corporation in society, is being reflected in the efforts of the IFRS Foundation’s International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the EU’s European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) being developed by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), and the U.S. SEC’s proposed rule on climate reporting. Eccles will discuss a new initiative of his to try to bridge the ideological divide. He will also provide some perspective on the future evolution of sustainability reporting standards drawing on lessons from financial reporting.