In anticipation of the incoming Trump administration, many organizations are (rightly) concerned about the future of ESG efforts in the US.

Now, companies “have to be really thoughtful about how they are balancing costs and sustainability,” Lindsay Azim, director analyst with Gartner’s talent and sustainability team, told CFO Brew. “This is really hard, and it involves the CFO in a way that I don’t think the CFO has been brought into the fold in years past.”

All the while, the risk of not prioritizing ESG investments, including in your supply chain, is too great to ignore, she argues.

“[That] risk is not going away, no matter if it’s a Democrat or Republican in the presidency in the US. Sustainability and ESG regulation is never going away,” she stressed. “If you are a global organization with a sprawling supply chain, you can’t back off, and we aren’t seeing companies back off.”

For CFOs, communication about sustainability efforts with chief supply chain officers is going to be a key part of navigating the next four years, regardless of what happens to ESG and climate regulations.

For more on aligning on sustainability goals, click here.—NP

This year, the Macy’s Inc. finance team will have a parade march of its own: a yearslong paper trail of up to $154 million in hidden delivery expenses.

The retailer, whose store brands include Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and Bluemercury, announced it had to delay its Q3 earnings after it found a rather large accounting discrepancy. It turns out, an employee who handled small-package delivery expenses “intentionally made erroneous accounting accrual entries” and hid between $132 million and $154 million in delivery expenses reaching back to Q4 2021. Macy’s reported about $4.4 billion of delivery expenses over that period.

According to Macy’s, “there is no indication that the erroneous accounting accrual entries had any impact on the company’s cash management activities or vendor payments,” nor has the company found anyone else involved. Needless to say, the employee responsible is no longer with the company.

“At Macy’s, Inc., we promote a culture of ethical conduct,” CEO Tony Spring said in a news release. “While we work diligently to complete the investigation as soon as practicable and ensure this matter is handled appropriately, our colleagues across the company are focused on serving our customers and executing our strategy for a successful holiday season.”

Keep reading here.—AZ

Is the AI ready yet?

That seems to be the question on many business leaders’ minds as the second anniversary of ChatGPT’s fateful release nears. Indices attempting to gauge how companies have fared at reworking operations around generative AI have been piling up lately—and the verdict is mixed.

Some companies are more confident than their actual capabilities would indicate, many are finding AI falls short, and others are still organizing their IT infrastructure, these reports said. The data paint a picture of companies grappling with how to best integrate generative AI capabilities into their business, as experts say companies are starting to feel pressure to move beyond experimentation.

Here’s a breakdown:

Moving backward: Cisco’s AI Readiness Index found that only 13% of large organizations are “ready to leverage AI and AI-powered technologies to their full potential,” a one-point drop from the same survey last year.

Cisco attributes the slipping momentum to culture and data challenges, as well as a lack of necessary talent and skills. And nearly half of companies report that “AI implementations have fallen short of expectations across top priorities.”

Click here to continue reading Tech Brew’s story on AI readiness.—PK