This is a persistent sore point in corporate sectors with significant production of highly visible waste products that are not always easy to dispose of – and the burden is often shifted to local government waste management services, whose resources are usually already overstretched.

But according to Magellan Financial Group (MFG) Core ESG Fund portfolio manager Elisa Di Marco, some of the world’s most iconic companies are maneuvering to change that public perception.

Citing Amazon and Starbucks as two examples of large multinationals sharing the burden of formulating ESG policies that significantly reduce their carbon emissions and their potentially harmful environmental footprint, Ms. Di Marco shared on a recent InvestorDaily podcast that often there is “a really negative perception around larger companies and how they incorporate ESG”.

According to Ms. Di Marco, this public perception is “rightly” earned, as their multinational status makes them much more visible than smaller competitors and other companies, forcing them to set an example for others.

But she complained that media coverage of big companies and their implementation of environmental policies tends to focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects of how they use their large footprint and scale for “good”.

Her contention is that most large companies care “to varying degrees” and “are generally socially responsible.”

“These companies have significant resources that they use to improve certain sustainability elements of their business and it’s that investment that they can then scale, which means they can have [a] a really significant impact,” Ms Di Marco said.

And since MFG is a leading investment firm with stakes in Starbucks, risk is an important indicator of how performance is evaluated, and according to Ms. Di Marco, ESG risks are like any other risk and can have a “material impact on earnings and cash flows “.

She highlighted a significant environmental and manufacturing initiative by Starbucks that integrated sippy lids into the lids of all their cold drinks in the United States, which the company intends to roll out globally.

Admitting the project may be “a bit small”, Ms Di Marco said it was a lot of plastic saved as a result of a change that puts a straw in the lid, given Starbucks’ daily sale of 400 million drinks.

The benefits extend beyond Starbucks’ bottom line and environmental stewardship, Ms. Di Marco said this investment is “trickle down” to the packaging industry because it will enable independent corner coffee shops to easily access the same eco-friendly packaging.

And of course, the consumer becomes more alert to these corporate environmental strategies, which then improves public perception of the company’s proactive environmental policies.

Backing up her argument for Starbucks, Ms. Di Marco referred to Amazon as a company focused on reducing the use of packaging – an important factor in being one of the largest e-commerce businesses in the world.

“Over the last seven years, they’ve reduced the weight of their outgoing packaging by almost 40 per cent and that’s saved a million tonnes of packaging,” Ms Di Marco said.

The impact on production of a corporate policy like this is huge as it reduces the use of raw materials in the original packaging, reduces the requirement to recycle the waste from that packaging and finally transport that packaging – a major factor potentially improving the bottom line of many stakeholders given the huge fuel and energy spikes.

“Big companies may not be perfect, but they can really make an impact if they invest for change and for good,” Ms Di Marco said.