Marked by its acronym, ESG focuses on Economical, Social and Governance elements in evaluating the sustainability and ethical impact of a company investment in a business. Over the years, the growing support in realigning global financial towards sustainability that is related to long-term impact and social values has leads to the increase importance in ESG initiative. Subsequently, in the recent years, the impact of Covid-19 and climate change had further increase the demand for ESG initiative. ESG reporting helps in improving enhancing brand image and reputation as it provides transparency to investor on how a company manages and reduce risks. However incorporating ESG initiative in business is not a simple task where actions board might find it overwhelming in getting started with ESG reporting. Here’s are some effective steps to getting started.
1. Outline your ESG Strategy
Start off by setting up your company’s sustainability strategy (both long-term and short-term goals) by getting the stakeholders on board through providing updates on the changes on the strategy. Gather data internally from stakeholders and across all departments to gain insight to determine gaps and opportunities. Using the correct data professional certain ESG tools, companies are able to obtain to manage the reporting requirements and at the same time regularly check on your ESG performance as well as the granular ESG data. With this report overview on ESG-related data, your company will be able to develop data-driven ESG strategies.
2. Choosing your Framework
There are numbers of framework that has been established for ESG initiative and has been recognised by investors as effective ones. The examples include TCFD, GRI, and SASB. Thus, make sure to evaluate every framework to decide on the framework that best suit the company’s strategy.
3. Establish transparency in your ESG Reporting
The objective of ESG Reporting is to provide stakeholders and investors with summaries of quantitative and qualitative data, complemented by a performance analysis in environmental, society and governance areas that shows insights on an business goals, impacts and added value. Therefore, it is essential to develop consistent and controlled policies that enable quantification of your company’s metrics to offer transparent ESG reporting. Transparent ESG reporting which are accurate, consistent, relevant, and in compliant with regulations will enable your stakeholders and investors to fully understand how your environmental, social and governance-related performance aligns with your business strategy thus improve decision making.
All in all, ESG reporting is no longer an elective subject in company practice as it determine the capabilities of a company in attracting investors. Every company should begin on getting started with ESG reporting should they aim for a long-term and sustainable financial growth.
E-SPIN being active in assisting enterprise and government agencies customer on the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), business continuity, disaster recovery (BCDR), and Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) and operation requirement, as being part of E-SPIN Availability Management solution. Feel free to contact E-SPIN for your specific operation or project requirement, so we can assist you on the exact requirement in the packaged solutions that you may require for your operation or project needs.
Other posts that may interest you:
1. What are the differences between ESG and CSR?
2. Business world is changing: Integrating ESG in business
