Regardless of the controversy over the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues on the fates or fortunes of business corporations, calls whether from policymakers (I. Mirza, ‘Congress a step closer to making corporate ESG disclosure mandatory’ (2021), JD Supra, 28 June 2021, https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/congress-a-step-closer-tomaking- 9721287/ (accessed 8 Aug. 2021), social advocates (J. Jaeger, ‘Activist investor win at ExxonMobil should be wake-up call for companies’ (2021), Compliance Week, 15 June 2021, https://www.complianceweek.com/boards-andshareholders/ activist-investor-win-at-exxonmobil-should-bewake- up-call-for-companies/30475.article (accessed 8 Aug. 2021), and from businesses itself (A. Murray & K. Dunn, ‘CEOs are calling for more regulation-of ESG standards’, Fortune, 12 August 2021, https://fortune. com/2021/08/12/ceos-are-calling-for-more-regulationof-esgstandards/ (accessed 12 Aug. 2021), are increasingly made throughout the course of the present COVID-19 pandemic cycle for regulatory actions (C.A. Adams & S. Abhayawansa, ‘Connecting the COVID-19 pandemic, environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing and calls for “harmonisation” of sustainability reporting’, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa. 2021.10230908/08/21 (accessed 9 Aug. 2021). Various facets of the COVID-19 pandemic have been blamed for their impacts on the lives and livelihoods of people across the world (OECD, ‘Coronavirus: The world economy at risk’ (2020), OECD Interim Economic Assessment (2 Mar. 2020), https://www.oecd.org/berlin/publikationen/Interim- Economic-Assessment-2-March-2020.pdf (accessed 8 Aug. 2021), including those in the US and the UK, but equally business corporations (E. Reicin, ‘Businesses should be held accountable for their ESG claims’ (2021), Forbes (23 Mar. 2021), https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesnonprofitcouncil/ 2021/03/23/businesses-should-be-held-accountable-for-theiresg- claims/?sh=67265fd25679 (accessed 8 Aug. 2021) and governments (K.P. Pucker, ‘Overselling sustainability reporting’ (2020), Harvard Business Review, May–June 2020, https://hbr.org/2021/05/overselling-sustainability-reporting (accessed 8 Aug. 2021) have also been blamed for their respective failures to do their parts in addressing ESG challenges that have become more prominent.