ESG – Sustainability Reporting
Increasing awareness of climate change impact within societies have reached the investment industry. This new demand on sustainability forces “real-economy” companies to position themselves and to report on their progress towards minimizing their detrimental impact on the environment as well as on societies. In many jurisdictions, this topic has been picked up in increasing disclosure requirements. Incumbent major players in financial information services have picked up the new demand and a vast variety of ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance)-initiatives of reporting beyond the financial have been kicked off. Many of them seem to be motivated from a perspective of creating a new business (more information requirement means more business for information brokers, auditing firms, and the likes), rather than from the perspective of really doing good (for more details, see Vieweg, S. (2021): AI for the Good, Springer).
But it is not all that bad: if there is a real intent towards greening the business (rather than green washing), there is really a lot to gain – in most cases even from the economic perspective!
Technical standards (and tools such as software from specific vendors) alone provide a vast variety of aspects that can be picked up … with the real risk that either the reporting organization is entirely lost in a multi-year program leading nowhere, or an isolated partial view not really helping the business to improve.
We help organizations to maneuver within the new requirements and craft initial ESG-reports, typically within a few weeks project and focused interactions with subject matter experts minimizing their precious time.
Since 2017, we work with the very pragmatic, though holistic approach of the German Sustainability Code, that is
- very pragmatic and focused in concentrating only on those aspects that are key to the reporting organization and its stakeholders
- compatible to regulatory requirements such as the EU Directive on Non-Financial Reporting, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), EU Taxonomy, and the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichten-Gesetz)
- Picks up core aspects from incumbent and widely accepted technical standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies (EFFAS)
- Complies with the reporting requirements being cascaded down to an increasing number of companies by size / revenue, starting 2023, within the next few years.
We are a fully recognized trainings partner of the German Sustainability Code and as such provide consulting, coaching and training (both inhouse and open. For open trainings, please see here).
