One in five board members appointed to ISEQ-listed companies since 2021 have some sort of sustainability expertise, according to recruiter Heidrick & Struggles.

The executive search company’s latest ‘Board Monitor Europe’ shows that in relation to ESG and sustainability, France, Portugal and Norway led all European board appointments between March 2021 and March 2022, with Ireland close behind. 

Compared with countries in North America or Asia, European companies have long paid more attention to many social and environmental considerations, according to H&S.

“ESG is a core business pillar and increasingly instrumental in corporate access to capital, which is a very effective method of attracting the attention of leaders and boards,” it says.
 
While one-fifth of board seats in Ireland were allocated to directors with experience in sustainability, at 22%, overall the numbers in Europe remained unchanged. Overall, Europe saw an increased share of directorships going to individuals with experience in digital and financial risk and compliance experience. 

Many public companies have begun to prepare for EU legislation which outlines minimum requirements for gender representation across public boards. Against this backdrop, the report found that 42% of new appointments in Ireland were females.

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Ireland managing partner Stafford Bagot (pictured) commented: “It is great to see Ireland among the nations with the highest number  of board appointments in 2021. With 42% of these appointments being female, it shows deliberate progress made towards improving diversity and inclusion within public company leadership.” 
 
“Another noteworthy trend in Ireland is our approach to risk management and readiness for the future. Ireland remains a critical global and EMEA hub for business, so it is important that the business community takes the lead in appointing board members with sustainability and ESG backgrounds. 

“Given that one-fifth of our overall appointments went to those with experience in these fields, it shows how risk conscious the Irish market is becoming. When we see that this trend isn’t being picked up across Europe, it’s interesting that Ireland has taken an ESG-skew while other countries saw an increase in appointments of those with experience in fields such as compliance and financial risk.”  
 
Outside Ireland, progress on diversity of appointees seems to be stalling across Europe with the overall share of seats going to women declining slightly from 45% to 43%.

But these averages vary significantly from country to country. For example, in 2021, 66% of Spain's new appointments were female, while only 33% of appointments in Belgium were female. 
 
In terms of diversity of nationality across public company boards in the 13 markets tracked, 56% of the new director seats in 2021 went to national and 34% to non-national executives across Europe,  referring to the directors’ place of origin.

Ireland reported that 33% of board seats went to non-national European individuals, 51% of appointees were Irish nationals, and 16% were non-nationals from outside Europe.

The average age of new directors on boards across Europe is 56, with nearly three-quarters of seats going to those between 50 and 65. 

Download the full report here.