In 2004, the term “ESG” was officially coined with the publication of the UN Global Compact Initiative’s Who Cares Wins report. ESG is simply another way of measuring the centuries-old concept of socially responsible investing. The UN’s report defined the three main pillars of ethical finance as environmental, social, and governance (ESG).

However, the launch of ESG metrics also led to significant marketing opportunities for fund managers. Labeling funds “ESG” allowed them to charge more fees and acted as a get-out-of-jail-free card if their funds performed poorly financially. After all, they were serving two masters: financial return and ESG.

But ESG has been hard to define and measure over the years, shifting most recently from conversations about corporate social responsibility (CSR) to ESG. Investors can easily see the financial return a fund has provided in the last year, last five years, last 10 years, and in the life of the fund, but the returns to ESG are much tougher to measure, let alone measure. Financial returns are quick, objective, and reliable.

On the other hand, ESG measurements have proved much more nebulous because the interpretation of ESG is so subjective. In short, there are too many indicators and too little quantitative work linking transparent measurement to outcomes.

THE CHALLENGE WITH ESG RATINGS

Many ESG ratings do not have an intrinsic standard. Instead, they vary based on a subjective grading system assigned by different rating organizations. Different raters assign factors different weights, resulting in different grades. For example, KLD Research & Analytics assigns heaviest weight to climate risk management, product safety, and remuneration. Another rater, Moody’s ESG, assigns greatest weight to Diversity, Environmental Policy, and Labor Practices.

But it’s not just the weighting that differs, but also the way they actually create the metrics and scope of metrics that are included in the overall scores. Two rating agencies can produce two entirely different ESG ratings based on their subjective assessments.

Recent research by professors Florian Berg, Julian Kolbel, and Roberto Rigobon in the Review of Finance documents substantial discrepancies across the different rating agencies. They find that differences in measurement and scope contribute to 56% and 38% of the divergencies across scores, respectively, and weights contribute 6%. Florian Berg, together with coauthors, has also found that ratings agencies have gone back into retrospective data and rewritten it to have more favorable correlations with financial performance among firms, thereby manipulating the rankings. Few have been upfront about these substantial concerns with the ratings.

Even if we take the ESG ratings at face value, higher ratings are not predictive of lower corporate governance problems, according to recent research by Ruoke Yang in the Journal of Financial Intermediation. While unfortunate and sad, the low predictive power is not surprising given the incentives that agencies have to invest in detecting greenwashing and the incentives that firms have to superficially signal efforts to improve their public image.

Admittedly, measuring environmental performance is not easy. But the difficulty does not absolve us from the responsibility of actually measuring what we care about. For example, if natural gas companies are effective at producing energy with low emissions—thanks to advances in fracking technology—then they should be environmental stars, particularly in light of the industry that they are in. And yet, they do not appear in ESG funds.

Although investors’ dual desire to get a high return on their investment and improve the world in the process is good, ESG has not evolved to a point where it can adequately address both desires.

A BETTER MEASURE OF CORPORATE HEALTH

The good news is there are plenty of exemplary companies that are both industry leaders and doing a great deal of good in the process—here are a few from our prior research:

Costco has led the retail industry in customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and stock performance for 40 years. They track the number of employees who have graduated from college, unlike any other retailer.

Southwest Airlines has been an industry leader for 50 years, in financial performance, customer satisfaction, and employee loyalty, having never laid off an employee.

Welty Construction has grown to 100 times its size 20 years ago by delighting customers, employees, and investors. President Donzell Taylor began a program of hiring former addicts to empower meaningful change for them and the community.

Many more examples abound, but we need more than examples of companies that are both profitable and do good in the world—we need a set of organizing principles. Put differently, what are the practices that create good in a company and, in turn, scale to create good in society?