About ESG Strategy and Implementation
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy as a business approach provides a framework for companies to employ, track, and report their sustainable goals. It is an action plan or a roadmap created by a company to ensure it is doing what it says; in other words, an absolute commitment to ESG. A well-rounded ESG strategy is an integral part of a robust sustainability strategy, which highly influences operational and business decision-making. However, an organization would face multiple challenges while creating a customized ESG strategy to gain traction in the market among investors, which gives it a competitive advantage over its rivals.
Importance of ESG Strategy and Implementation Within the Current Market Scenario
In the current market scenario, a comprehensive and robust ESG strategy helps companies attract investment and consumer trust. In addition, implementing an effective ESG strategy can contribute to economic growth, improve performance, increase a firm’s brand value, enhance community engagement, and mitigate the risk of climate change.
From an investor’s perspective, there are a few ESG strategies, including ESG screening, impact investing, and ESG integration, which refine and promote investment decisions. However, on the other hand, for firms, the dynamic nature of the ESG landscape presents a challenge to create an ESG strategy that is in line with evolving ESG trends. This may further create a roadblock for companies in collecting and organizing key ESG metrics for disclosures and expose them to regulatory & compliance issues.
How ESG Strategy and Implementation Adds Value to Your Business
Developing an ESG strategy depends on a team of consumers including internal stakeholders, such as board members, senior management, & employees, and external stakeholders, such as customers, ESG consultants, & investors. We work along with the most vital consumers demanding ESG strategy and Implementation in their operations:
- Board of directors: The C-suite considers ESG strategy as an utmost priority in achieving a competitive advantage, expanding business avenues, and ensuring regulatory compliance.
- Investors: An investor’s point of view is to understand issues that matter to them. An effective ESG strategy adds value to investors by being an ESG communication tool to identify challenges with respect to private equity ownership, IPOs, & green bonds and sail through these challenges.
- Senior management employees: The senior management sets the pace for incorporating ESG programs within an organization by providing a clear plan, creating SMART goals, and communicating the business case. A best-in-class ESG strategy provides a vision to the senior leadership to promote a diverse, inclusive, equitable workforce. In addition, it helps them promote several social factors, including labor relations to improve overall financial productivity of a firm.
- Suppliers and lenders: An effective ESG strategy increases the product life-cycle value across supply chain by reducing costs and minimizing waste. It is based on the supply chain’s operating model and helps evaluate ESG targets, such as decarbonization, against the ambitions of the supplier.
How NeoImpact can help
Corporate ESG strategies are unique to each industry and business, where companies rely on multiple reporting standards for creating & developing effective robust ESG strategies, which depend on how an organization identifies and integrates ESG trends & practices within its operations. NeoImpact solves the fundamental challenges in creating and implementing an effective ESG strategy by providing a quantifiable program for improving the success of an ESG strategy and a framework that delivers measurable results after implementation.
Data gathering and screening
According to a 2022 survey by a leading consulting firm, accessibility and availability of data were considered the biggest challenges for public companies. The collection, standardization, routing, and analysis of ESG data are key aspects of a robust ESG strategy, and NeoImpact uses advanced technologies including AI and collective intelligence in the collection, standardization, and analysis of data.
Defining SMART ESG goals
SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound ESG goals are the need of the hour, as they are the first step in providing direction to a firm to reach its sustainability goals. These goals must then be communicated to the firm’s employees, suppliers, and customers. Engaging NeoImpact at this step provides clarity to organizations in their vision to achieve sustainable operations.
Creating customized ESG intelligence
NeoImpact’s robust taxonomy integrates 300+ ESG KPIs and popular ESG frameworks, including the GRI, CDP, UN-SDGs, SASB, & TCFD, for enhancing sustainability disclosure and reporting. NeoImpact helps firms define, measure, and track ESG goals by benchmarking them against comprehensive ESG frameworks to promote ESG intelligence.
Sustainability/ESG reporting
Sustainability data disclosures and sustainability branding are dependent on ESG reporting, governing an organization’s progress and its commitment to achieving operational sustainability. NeoImpact considers this integral aspect within ESG strategy implementation and promotes ESG data centralization, preparation of case studies, and development of testimonials.
Converting raw data into customized insights
NeoImpact’s proprietary ESG dashboard incorporates data-driven decision-making to refine scope & purpose of sustainability reporting and data collection across company & industry verticals for effortless analysis and visualization of KPIs. In addition to increasing the quality of data, NeoImpact reduces the time to develop a comprehensive ESG strategy by providing consolidated ESG insights of KPIs across industry & company verticals.
Active collaboration and optimization of the program/strategy
NeoImpact offers a roadmap and strategy for stakeholder engagement to improve community relationships in line with the expectations of employees, customers, and business partners.
Developing strategic roadmaps
The development of a strategic roadmap is perhaps the final step before an ESG strategy/program is implemented. Once all ESG metrics are defined under ESG pillars, NeoImpact helps corporates and SMEs map their performance against defined targets and frameworks to promote Environmental, Social, and Governance sustainability within the firm’s operations.
Benchmarking and gap analysis
NeoImpact assists clients in developing robust industry benchmarking studies to identify implementation gaps and analyze potential directions to bridge such gaps.
ESG implementation solutions
To implement ESG best practices throughout the organization, NeoImpact helps create strategies, policies, and initiatives that are sustainability-centric and create stakeholder-centric outcomes. We also assist clients with branding such initiatives across various platforms, including social media, to transform as an ESG influencer.
