Il rating ESG delle società di capitali

The article aims to describe the ESG rating phenomenon, focusing on its relative impact on the corporate policy choices of large corporations and on the sustainability discipline at a national, European and US level. The first part outlines the main critical issues, including the so called“greenwashing”, the lack of uniformity in rating criteria, the perceptual risk involved in the adoption of a unitary output for divergent elements, and the difficulty of constructing a liability for agencies in the event of negative rating damage. Furthermore, a number of proposals for solutions are highlighted both at the normative (specifically the European legislature, which is a forerunner worldwide) and soft law (referring to the Italian Corporate Governance Code of 2020), and jurisdictional framework, as well as reporting on the initiatives of national and international (ESMA and SEC) Authorities.