Study № 001Frozen 15 September 2026
The ESG retreat
766 annual reports that used the word ESG in 2024 were filed again in 2026 without it.
The share of 10-K filers using the word rose from 1.2% in 2019 to 34.6% in 2024, and is 22.5% so far in 2026. This page states the counts, how they were made, and the list they came from.
Research tool. Describes what filings say. Not investment advice. Verify independently.
How this was counted
Every year a few thousand companies file a 10-K with the SEC. It is the annual report in its regulated form: the business, the risks, the numbers, the auditor's opinion. Nobody writes one from scratch. Each year's filing starts as last year's, and the edits are where the information is.
This study counts one edit across the whole filing population: the appearance and the disappearance of the phrase ESG.
What the count shows
In 2019, 74 companies used the phrase in a 10-K, about one filer in a hundred. By 2024 it was 2,175, a little over one in three. In 2026 it is 1,382.
The rise took five years. The fall has taken two.
Who stopped
A falling share can mean two different things: companies dropping the word, or companies leaving the population. Both happened, and the snapshot separates them.
Of the 2,175 companies that used the phrase in a 2024 annual report, 1,088 use it again this year and 283 did not file a 10-K inside this year's window at all. The remaining 804 filed one and did not use the word. Those 804 registrants filed 766 separate annual reports between them, because a combined 10-K is listed under each of its registrants. Separately, 294 companies used the phrase for the first time this year.
Every one of the 804 is listed with its CIK and both accession numbers, so any row can be checked against the filings themselves.
What this is not
A word leaving a document is not a practice leaving a company. A filing is a legal document written under liability, and its vocabulary moves for reasons that have nothing to do with what a business does: a term becomes contested, a regulator changes what it asks for, a drafting template is revised. This study reports the vocabulary and nothing else.
It also counts a string, not a subject. The match is the phrase itself wherever it appears, including inside a fund or entity name, and it does not find a company that writes about the same subject in other words.
Why this is here
Yearover compares a company's new filing with its previous one and shows what changed, with the passage behind every claim. This study asks the same question of the whole filing population at once rather than of one company. The snapshot it rests on is published alongside it, so the arithmetic can be checked rather than taken on trust.
Year by year
| Year | Companies | 10-K filers | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 74 | 6,258 | 1.2% |
| 2020 | 239 | 6,121 | 3.9% |
| 2021 | 725 | 6,457 | 11.2% |
| 2022 | 1,653 | 7,139 | 23.2% |
| 2023 | 2,166 | 6,770 | 32.0% |
| 2024 | 2,175 | 6,294 | 34.6% |
| 2025 | 1,780 | 6,123 | 29.1% |
| 2026 | 1,382 | 6,143 | 22.5% |
The retreat, 2024 to 2026
| Group | Companies |
|---|---|
| Used ESG in a 2024 10-K | 2,175 |
| Still using it in 2026 | 1,088 |
| Dropped it and filed a 2026 10-K | 804 |
| The distinct 2026 filings those registrants made | 766 |
| No 2026 10-K in the window | 283 |
| Started using it in 2026 | 294 |
The companies
804 registrants filed 766 annual reports between them: 38 of the rows are additional registrants on a report another row already counts.
The frozen list
804 rows · Frozen 15 September 2026The count above rests on this list, one row per company, with the accession number of both filings so every row can be opened on SEC.gov and checked.
cik · company · accession_2024 · accession_2026
766 annual reports that used the word ESG in 2024 were filed again in 2026 without it.
Yearover, "The ESG retreat". Universe: every 10-K filed with the SEC, counted at company level. Frozen 15 September 2026.
https://yearover.com/studies/esg-retreat-2026?ref=quote
Limits of this count
- EDGAR full-text search returns a slightly different set on each run, so every figure on this page is computed from one snapshot taken on the cut-off date rather than from a separate live query per figure. The snapshot is published with the study.
- A combined annual report is listed under every registrant that filed it, so the 804 registrants in the list sit on 766 distinct reports: 38 of the rows are additional registrants on a report another row already counts. The headline counts the reports.
- The 2022 denominator is higher than every other year because 2022 carries an unusually large cohort of companies filing a 10-K for the first time, most of which do not file again inside the window. That cohort lowers the 2022 share.
- The word is matched as a literal string. It can also appear inside a fund name or an entity name, which this count does not separate out.
- The 283 companies that did not file a 10-K in the 2026 window are excluded by construction: a company that stopped filing did not drop the word, it stopped reporting.
- Dropping the word is not the same as dropping the practice. This is an observation about language in filings, not a conclusion about what a company does.