I’m getting pretty excited about the 5th Annual “Transparency Awards” coming up soon on September 19th – the winners in eight categories will be announced as part of a video ceremony that I will blog about that day. The five types of documents covered in the eight categories are: proxy statements, Form 10-Ks, IR websites, ESG reports and codes of conduct.
As I’ve blogged before, I’m proud to be serving as a “Transparency Champion” and hope you can become one too. I truly think it will help you find truth in your work. That you will take a little more pride in being a disclosure drafter. And as I’ve blogged before, there is a business case for transparency as trust in your company’s business builds real value.
Of course, the winners of these Awards are always happy to receive recognition for their hard work and we’ve featured them before on our “Transparency Awards” site. We will continue to feature the winners as they deserve the accolades.
But the Award winners might also be surprised that not only will they receive recognition right here, but that their own senior managers – their boards of directors – also take pride in what they have achieved. For example, Labrador’s Molly Doran was reading Welltower’s 2022 ESG Report and here’s what she found on page 9 of the CEO’s letter:
“Transparency is also core to our ESG values and extremely important in an era of claims of both “greenwashing” and “green hushing.” We rely on the strength of our reporting and data collection to support integrity and adherence with best practices. We are extremely proud to have been recognized by Labrador as a 2022 Transparency Award winner in the real estate industry for our clear and concise disclosure of relevant information to our stakeholders through our annual proxy statement, Form 10-K and investor relations website. In addition, we introduced an updated Vendor Code of Conduct providing specific guidance related to Welltower’s ESG priorities including business ethics, human rights, diversity, equity, inclusion, health and data privacy.”
This “Transparency Movement” is for real and it’s not going to go away anytime soon as demands for better disclosure among readers grows louder every year. Companies should strive to be more forward-thinking and not just be reactive to regulatory requirements. I’ve always heard that the best directors are the ones that are capable of “peering around corners” to predict what is ahead. Disclosure drafters can be that way too…
