Rules will also require 33% women in senior roles by 2026
In the latest ESG legislative initiative to come from the EU, the trialogue discussion between the Commission, Parliament and Council have agreed to adopt landmark mandatory quotas to ensure ‘the underrepresented sex’ will have at least 40% of seats on corporate boards.
The requirements will come into force 30 June 2026 and require large companies with over 250 employees operating in the EU to also ensure 33% representation of women in all senior roles, including non-executive directors and C-suite.
Far from a buzzword, ESG is fast becoming the standard for businesses to manage and report on their risks. ESG: environmental, social and governance, are essentially the broadest set of factors that can measure a company’s impact on the world. ESG reporting and ratings drive a huge and growing amount of investment.
Deciding to start ESG scoring can seem like a daunting task. But in actual fact, compliance dovetails into ESG reporting in a very meaningful way. Using a particular ESG framework can help to guide your reporting processes, showing you where to look, what to measure, and how to communicate it.
Is this because Tesla’s prima donna CEO, Elon Musk, wants to stand out from the crowd of billionaire CEOs? Musk certainly likes to make a statement, even if his tweets have previously been accused of violating labour laws and resulted in defamation cases.
ESG can feel like a complex and confusing topic, from finding the right data to track to aligning to frameworks. Are ESG frameworks mandatory, or even necessary for ESG? Which framework is right for which industry and size of business, and what’s the benefit, or not, of aligning to a framework for ESG?
In this webinar, our Director of Product Alona Stern and Director of Learning and Content Nick Henderson explored what frameworks mean, how to align with them, and which one, if any, may be right for your business. We also heard from Amanda Latham, Associate and Policy & Strategy Lead at professional services consultancy Barnett Waddingham. Amanda shared insight on her journey to becoming involved in ESG, including chairing the stewardship workstream of the Investment Consultants Sustainability Working Group (ICSWG).
This webinar covered:
The most popular ESG frameworks
What the difference is between the different ESG frameworks
Global businesses are no longer working on environmental, social and governance issues in a silo. They are bringing them together under the banner of ESG to demonstrate the positive impact the business is having on the world. We have created a guide to environmental, social and governance factors with case studies and examples to help businesses that want to get started on ESG initiatives.
Environmental, social and governance issues do not exist in a silo. ESG is about bringing them together under one banner to demonstrate the positive impact our business is having on the world. ESG is much like corporate social responsibility but on a vastly larger and more measurable scale. Companies that are at the forefront of talking about their ESG scores are generating more attention from across the business spectrum, and investors are actively looking for high ESG-scoring companies.
VinciWorks Free ESG Policy Template
VinciWorks has released a free policy template for businesses to download and use in order to inform their staff on everything ESG related they should know. This includes information on reporting, disclosures, business practices, policies, procedures, investments, board activities, stakeholder engagement, and investor relations.
Which Types of Companies and Businesses Should Download this ESG Policy Template
Recently, ESG has gained more attention worldwide and the SEC as well as other jurisdictions around the world have begun considering or implementing ESG disclosure requirements and penalties for non-compliance. The focus at first is likely to be mainly on disclosures by large reporting companies and ESG funds, but small businesses and privately-held companies should also strongly consider implementing ESG reporting frameworks, as they can also create a significant impact by having an ESG program.
From April 2022, 1,300 of the largest UK firms will be required to report based on the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures) framework. This will include many of the largest companies such as banks and insurers, as well as private businesses with over 500 employees and £500 million in turnover. This means that businesses within the supply chain of these larger firms will have to be prepared to report on some climate-related information to them. Data could include greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint from travel. Even if your own business is not required to undertake mandatory TCFD reporting, if significant customers of yours do have to report based on TCFD, it might be sensible for you to consider TCFD as your own framework. Similarly, if some of your major customers use GRI or the UN SDGs, you may want to align with those rules.
Whether you are a large UK firm or a smaller private firm anywhere in the world, downloading the ESG policy template can help you be prepared and get started on implementing an ESG programme.
As companies look to develop and implement their ESG programmes, there are a number of issues that commonly come up. As we deliver our webinars and guides on ESG, VinciWorks receives many questions about the subject. Many are addressed in articles on our blog.
In this post, we will explore how to do an ESG gap analysis. An ESG gap analysis from VinciWorks looks at an organisation’s achievements in ESG, as well as suggesting potential initiatives and metrics to track those.
Has your organisation set any ESG-related goals such as net zero carbon emissions? Are you building an ESG programme around a reporting framework? Whether your programme is already under way or you don’t know where to start, our ESG resource page contains the guides, policy templates, on-demand webinars and blogs to help any organisation in any industry.
Our most popular resources include:
• A series of guides on the different reporting frameworks
• Introductory guide to ESG
• ESG policy template
• On-demand webinar on implementing an ESG programme
• Blog on mapping regulatory requirements
Click here to view the ESG resource page and instantly access the rich collection of resources.
As the world gets more and more interconnected, corporate responsibility and sustainability are more important than ever for a company’s success.
Whereas in previous decades, a company’s value was mainly linked to physical assets like property and equipment, now it is intangible assets like branding, relationships, and ideas that define a business.
The growing trend toward ESG measurements is, in part, a response to that change. Attractive businesses must now be more sensitive than ever to how they are perceived as members of a larger corporate environment.
More and more companies understand the necessity to publish ESG reports detailing their performance on environmental, social and governance metrics. This comes from an awareness that steps like reducing their carbon footprint; improving diversity and gender equality in the workforce, and maintaining an ethical value chain for suppliers and customers display a level of social responsibility that is demanded by customers, partners and investors.
ESG rating agencies and reporting frameworks use training as a measure of ESG effectiveness. But there is no one-size-fits-all training solution. A core part of any ESG initiative is employee training.
Our new course, ESG: The Basics, is the ultimate introduction to ESG that covers the core concepts of ESG and speaks to employees’ moral responsibilities and their organisation’s commitments. Over the coming weeks we will also be releasing a Fundamentals course that goes into further depth on areas such as the supply chain, ratings, your company’s ESG policy and more.
Throughout our webinars and guides on ESG, VinciWorks has received many questions about the subject. ESG is a new area for business, and one still largely unregulated so these are common concerns. Most of the questions we have received about ESG fall into three distinct categories.
