The use of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) metrics by the financial sector is growing through ESG investing. To understand the growth, it is helpful to consider what motivates their use. ESG investing can be divided into two camps. There are those who view...
The article highlights the versatility of AI, explaining how recent developments allow it to go beyond simple customer service conversations and become a useful tool for investors and firms in their effort to stay efficient and modernized. While AI is commonly used to navigate large amounts of data, its applications are diverse, and different AI companies now narrow their training data in order to create more intelligent and specified machines. Upon its initial introduction to the industry, AI has the potential to make significant contributions to the sustainability of corporations, whether by automating and streamlining processes, reducing energy consumption, or reducing emissions.
Bad surprises happen. Avoid them with due diligence. When they happen, plan to do better, and execute on your plan. Communicate your expectations to employees and suppliers. Verify, and continuously improve. Stay on a path to sustainability, and reach out to Clear Strategy for help.
In this blog we discuss how third-party risks affect your organization, and how ESG principles can help.
In today’s business landscape, you should be concerned not only with your own reputation and brand, but the reputations of your third party suppliers. Stakeholders are demanding transparency on ESG risks throughout their entire value chain, including you and your suppliers.
The European Council is expected to adopt the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) this month, November 2022. The CSRD is intended “to foster sustainable and responsible corporate behaviour and to anchor human rights and environmental considerations in companies’ operations and corporate governance. The new rules will ensure that businesses address adverse impacts of their actions, including in their value chains inside and outside Europe.”
Here are nine steps your company will need to take to prepare for the CSRD.
The Economist recently ran an article titled Facebook and the conglomerate curse, and it addresses the future of ESG . The article is about “Silicon Valley’s big five tech giants, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft.” It comments on their drop in market value this year, swollen costs, and slowing core businesses, alongside the “near-absolute control” of the companies’ founders.
If you are challenged by your boss, board, or shareholders, show them the the potential harm to others. Then show them the data that proves that the costs, and the length of time that you will continue to pay those costs, are too high and too long for you not to do the right thing.
Businesses need not choose between shareholder interests, on the one hand, or social and environmental interests on the other. It is not a competitive, zero-sum game. If a company prioritizes employees so it comes out ahead in the war for talent, and it values customers and designs products they trust, shareholders will win, too.
ESG is a set of metrics that a company and others can use to assess how
E: environmental issues like carbon emissions, and the use and availability of clean water,
S: social issues like indentured and slave labor, and employee health and safety, and
G: governance issues like who has decision-making power within an organization
affect company performance, and in turn how its operations impact the environment and society. There is a dual utility to ESG metrics. They can be used both to look inward at a company’s performance, and outward at how the company impacts the world.
Developing an ESG strategy starts with knowing which environmental, social and governance goals are critical to your business strategy and success.
