Robert Eccles

Robert Eccles spent decades at Harvard Business School and later Oxford before becoming a leading architect of ESG reporting infrastructure. He co-founded the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), which developed industry-specific disclosure standards for financially material ESG information. His 2010 book "One Report" advocated for integrated financial and sustainability reporting. Eccles' research and institutional work helped shift ESG from a niche investor concern to mainstream corporate and regulatory practice, influencing the EU's CSRD and SEC's climate disclosure rules. His research demonstrated that companies with strong sustainability performance do not necessarily underperform financially relative to their peers, and in many sectors show superior long-term performance — findings that helped make the business case for ESG integration in mainstream investment analysis. He has continued to advocate for convergence among competing ESG reporting standards and frameworks to reduce disclosure burden while improving comparability.