The exact causality between ESG performance and share price is yet to be as clear as sustainability professionals, like myself, would like. However, despite some pushback on ESG as a concept, many banks, private equity firms and investors continue to weave ESG into decision-making. This is because ESG and investment share one key focus area; risk. Previously, if you analysed a company - and it did not comply with ESG legislation, this could result in reputational risk or a fine. Now, as France transposes the EU's CSRD Directive into national law, non-compliance could result in a prison sentence for the offending executives. At Canalys, we track ESG regulations and incentives that directly impact the IT industry, and this already amounts to at least 120 individual legislative incentives and frameworks - only impacting IT; imagine what this number is across all industries. Now, we know investors are using ESG to value the risk of investing in a company: if you are an ESG laggard in 20 years' time, we have yet to see the true price of ESG inaction in the eyes of investors.