ESG is the new compliance, as ESIAs were and still are, as it is an audit and disclosure play for a wider audience than environmental permitting, as the primary driver is benchmarking for an investor target group. Fifteen years back environmental compliance was the cost of doing business, as in this climate scenario ESG is the cost of doing business. It is about communicating impact for your stakeholders, and not really about impact itself. Many conflate doing ESG reporting as impact, but impact is an input, reporting is an output of the process to create impact. The lowest hanging fruit in sustainability or ESG is to hire a sustainability manager, yet it is a compliance officer in the GRC function.
Doing ESG is hygiene, like filing taxes- one does not call the company secretary as impact. No wonder green washing risk is the leading risk for enterprises in 2024.
Change Thinker 