Why you should care about ESG
The world is moving in one direction: more sustainability, more accountability, more responsibility. Companies can no longer be just left alone and pretend that nothing's happening around them.
Companies are under increasing pressure to be more ethical, sustainable and climate-friendly. Failure to comply with environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria can have significant legal, reputational and financial consequences.
The individual elements or pillars of ESG are themselves often intertwined, and ESG goals should be at the centre of any companies corporate strategy.
Environmental
The environmental pillar includes things such as:
- The energy your company takes in
- the waste it discharges
- the resources it needs
- carbon emissions and the consequences for life as a result.
Across the globe, how we produce, consume and discard has a significant adverse impact on the natural world.
For example, a business must ensure that the personal data it processes is limited only to what it needs for its operations (data minimisation). Storing and processing excess data in this way necessitates larger data centres and server farms, increasing energy consumption contravenes this principle.
Governance
While ESG issues are gaining traction the governance pillar is often overlooked. However, without governance there can be no environmental or social in a business model. Governance therefore is the backbone of how companies deliver their policies with ESG in mind. Governance is the internal system of practices, controls, and procedures a company adopts in order to govern itself, make effective decisions, comply with the law, and meet the needs of external stakeholders. Governance ensures accountability within a company.
How we can help
We can advise clients across the full-spectrum of stakeholder governance-related opportunities, risks and compliance issues including:
- The development and successfully implementation of ESG strategies
- Environmental, human rights and other social policies
- Diversity and inclusion in the workplace
- Clear anti-bribery and corruption policies
- Compliant internal reporting channels (whistleblowing).
- ESG due diligence
- Compliance – information disclosure, auditing, and complying with regulations
- Legal and Risk Strategy – where are the most important locations that impact your business? Where are your suppliers and data servers located? What would be the effect of a 2 or 4 degree change in temperature to these locations?
Our first piece of advice is always free. Get in touch with your query, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
UK Office
7e Enterprise Way
Vale Park
Evesham
WR11 1GS
Irish Office
Copyright SME Comply Ltd. 2020
Social