The shift in focus from legacy systems to digital has radically transformed traditional business models.In the race to be ahead of the competition, companies embedding disruptive technologies and trendy methodologies in their IT systems are also looking at ways to reduce risk and increase corporate accountability. Automated sustainability-focused strategic and regulatory frameworks are gaining traction as businesses assess their performance through the ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) lens and improve bottom lines.
Change management is impacting the way companies work. And businesses are leveraging ESG reporting solutions. What do they do? ESG solutions measure the social and sustainability impact of rapidly evolving conditions and opportunities in the environmental, economic, and social space.
ESG management solutions have thus emerged as the newest business model aimed at reducing risk and increasing corporate accountability with employees, customers, investors, and other stakeholders. The focus is on disclosing environmental, social, and governance data and ensuring transparency and accountability across the entire business lifecycle.
Ways your company benefits from ESG solutions
Whether for your company’s ESG data management solutions or ESG reporting solutions, the ESG framework certainly generates higher value creation for your business.
How well does your organization function on the sustainability level? How does it address environmental concerns such as waste reduction, resource use, pollution, greenhouse gas emission goals and climate change? Has it adopted end-to-end digitalization for business processes that do away with manual processes and physical documents?
Does your company acknowledge that its critical assets are its labor force? Does it have an ESG Management System in place for gender and racial diversity, human rights, pay parity, workplace conditions, and so on?
What are the practices, controls, and procedures for responsible self-governance to ensure process transparency, accountability, and compliance?
While these are some questions you must ask before onboarding an ESG management solution, here are some quantifiable and non-tangible benefits of implementing ESG solutions that may interest you:
- Cost Reduction
- Higher productivity
- Better access to top talent
- Higher employee retention
- Customer satisfaction
- Strong brand presence
- Top-line growth
- Regulatory compliance
- Competitive advantage
- Operational efficiencies
- Asset and resource optimization
- Higher Returns on Investment (ROI)
Creating the Roadmap to Implementing ESG Management Solutions
ESG strategies are a barometer of long-term value. An organization that seeks to create a differentiator in the market vis-a-vis its branding and employee retention must implement ESG management solutions.
The criteria surrounding Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) solutions are a yardstick that socially aware and concerned investors use to analyze investments and active engagements in their ventures. However, adopting an ESG strategy is not the end. Delivering on it is more crucial. Furthermore, the ESG management solutions must align with your company’s business goals and customer and shareholder interests.
As a company planning to implement an ESG strategy that includes ESG reporting solutions, ESG data management solutions or ESG risk management solutions, these are some steps to implementing your ESG roadmap:
A. Defining Goals
Any ESG framework identifies and lays down your company goals, competition and milestones. Enshrining a clear roadmap of your market, business strengths and objectives, and available data on ESG is a surefire way to unify your company’s interests.
What are your goals for achieving environmental milestones? Does sustainability create value for your organization? What are the current and potential challenges? How many resources are you willing to allocate for end-to-end digitalization? What is the potential trade-off to replace all manual processes contributing to pollution and waste? How significant are racial diversity and social inclusion in your firm? What are your financial and deliverable targets?
This step is critical for your ESG solution rollout, as it allocates resources for each aspect and sets the benchmark for your company’s ESG management plans.
B. Establish Resource Use and Timelines
Quantifying your budgetary allocation for fulfilling each business goal includes resource allocation and budgets to timelines. The step includes conducting an ROI analysis, determining resource savings and establishing the pathway to achieve the same and using methods like alternative funding to manage energy efficiency improvements
C. Build a Framework
Build a formalized ESG framework that demonstrates your company’s seriousness towards achieving the ESG goals and ensures the organization is on track toward meeting its ESG management goals. Set milestones and build the right teams that take your business forward in the ESG management momentum. Part of the process is proof of adherence to the framework, including certifications under various ESG-related standards.he framework must integrate a roadmap to address concerns of region-specific compliance laws and streamline the process to complete the reporting benchmarks,
D. Evaluate Opportunities for Data Management, Reporting and Automation
ESG reporting solutions related to ESG data management or Risk management solutions call for automation across the process lifecycle. For instance, automation in collecting and validating your data can drive data-driven insights that help you identify your top and bottom-performing assets. They serve as building blocks for devising your ESG initiatives, such as energy auditing and Intelligent Document Processing, to ramp up your ROI.
Ask yourself if your organization has the tools necessary for data and risk management solutions. This approach can help identify issues and take a course correction before costs escalate or adversely impact sustainability performance and operations costs. You can opt for an ESG solution, which is a technology platform or tool that simplifies compliance with ESG regulations, tracking, monitoring, and more.
E. Monitor Progress
Keeping track of the ESG solutions and their milestones with reviews and efficient checks and balances goes a long way towards achieving your ESG goals and the roadmap.
F. Maintain ESG Compliance
With the recent trend of high-profile companies and banking institutions being penalized for non-compliance, companies must focus on regulatory compliance for effective ESG management. What are the ESG-related regulations in your industry? Have you identified the relevant compliance standards? Once you have identified the key ESG directives that impact your business, the next step would be to develop the appropriate reporting standards for compliance. An ESG solution bundled with advanced reporting features can prove instrumental in maintaining compliance.
Takeaway
Investors, customers and governmental agencies look toward environmental, social and governance (ESG) sustainability practices in businesses they support. Increasing demand from the financial and government communities for adherence to strong ESG standards increases business-wide transparency. It also limits their exposure to the risk of social and environmental-focused regulations worldwide. By applying basic risk identification and assessment methodologies, ESG helps businesses identify opportunities and increase profitability in a sustainable way. An ESG solution implemented efficiently contributes to a robust corporate culture for customer satisfaction, employee retention, and compliance.
This is where WNS-Vuram’s Plug-n-Play ESG management solution can help businesses stay ESG-compliant and achieve their ESG strategic goals. To request a demo or for more information, write to ask@vuram.com .
