5 steps to take now in your environmental, social and governance journey Stuck? Find the resources!

Taipei – 21st September – No time like the present to make sure you are doing even the basics on your environmental, social and governance (ESG) journey.

5 steps to get you on your way –

Understand your resilience to climate change - Global emission scenarios will help you make betterstrategic decisions to increase your resilience to climate change.

This understanding will help you comply and conform with initiatives or regulations such as the –

• Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures - the TCFD provides information to investors about what companies are doing to mitigate the risks of climate change, as well as be transparent about the way in which they are governed.

• International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) - the ISSB, in June this year, issued its first two IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability - related Financial Information and IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures

• Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires companies to report on the impact of corporate activities on the environment and society and requires audit (assurance) of reported information. The CSRD is part of the EU Green Deal.

Compliance with these standards or disclosures will benefit your brand both domestically and globally.

Plan a Sustainability Program – Create a top-down corporate sustainability program. This program should include detailed options for acting on and implementing recommendations based on impact, cost, effort, and time.

Ensure you benchmark your plan against your peers and aim to be the leader in your market. Make sure your plan is in a state of constant forward movement. Create a work log for each step, appoint action holders, detail the date for deliverables and ensure accountability.

Initiate an ESG Gap Assessment – As with any program, there will be gaps. These gaps can be identified through a thorough gap analysis. Highlight the gaps, opportunities, and recommendations and again, create a work log for each gap, appoint action holders, detail the date for closure of the gaps and ensure accountability.

Know your Greenhouse Gas Emissions – Know your GHG inventory or carbon footprint. Create a plan to reduce your carbon footprint. If this involves carbon trading, then understand how to be engaged in that process and the risks involved.

Understand Due Diligence for Climate Change and ESG related investments – You must know how to perform your own due diligence analysis (or be prepared to outsource this function to a professional 3rd party service provider) and be able to factor in climate and ESG issues in your investment decisions.

Know how to identify the risk, through appropriate due diligence and be able to quantify the risk for the life of the investment.

Don’t know how to do any or all of these 5 steps? Find the resources. Act now!