Now is the time to start your ESG journey

Business owners have a huge amount to think about, and we know that many struggle to find the time to work on their business rather than in their business.  Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations are something that you need to make time for. The sooner the better.  

Right now there is a real opportunity an inflection point, where we as business leaders can take this opportunity and act upon it. Legislation driving that change isn’t going to go away, and there will be an impact as early as 2023. We advise business leaders to think about what you need to do to get into shape and look at what you are going to be reporting on.  Start to drive curiosity and improvement and create champions within your business. Build your own groundswell of advocacy and therefore action.  

 

So how do you do that? How do you actually take forward the ESG agenda and put it into action?  

One key reason to get started is that it’s probably that your competitors have already. If they’re not doing it today, there’ll be doing it tomorrow.  In what is becoming a tough market, you need to be able to differentiate yourself and keep driving your business on. It’s clear that the ESG agenda, evidence of what you’re doing – not a green wash – will drive sales. It will give you access to certain audiences, and will get you on regulatory frameworks, as well as on preferred supplier lists and will impact your costs.  

 

Why implement ESG now? 

• We are already seeing that particularly in some professional services there is a different tariff if you’re an ESG compliant business or not.  
• It will of course, increase productivity. Happy people that want to do work for the right reasons, inevitably drives up productivity. 
• It’s about values and driving the right behaviours.  

• ESG is driven by regulation and legislation therefore, if you act now, you’re going to create greater freedom for yourself to operate going forward – don’t wait and risk someone dictating what you do.  
• Subsidies and tax, we predict will be another thing and another potential cost that we can navigate around more effectively. 
• ESG is driving business valuation. When you get into the process of due diligence, private equity investors will attach a value to whatever it is you’ve got about ESG, and how that is driving your business and sustainability going forward. 
• We know it’s driving access to funding for the first time, we are seeing funding applications set with major lenders, major clearing banks, not moving because the ESG lending criteria is not being met.  
• Help your business to attract and retain talent, we know how difficult that is at this moment in time.  

There are lots of compelling reasons why you should be thinking and acting around the ESG agenda.  

 

How can we help? 

We  have come up with a way to help you understand where you are in terms of your ESG ratings and how you can move forward in a way that is affordable and accessible for business leaders. Firstly, the ability to audit your business to get a score or ranking around the ESG elements. Then, what you do around planning and strategy, which is of course our core competence. What you do as responsible business, with the environment, social purpose and governance at your heart, to drive performance and to drive culture. 

A new role will emerge in organisations around that individual that leads and is responsible for sustainability. There is also a wider consultation piece that Elephants Child can also lead depending on what your business needs. What we’re trying to do is make sense of a lot of discussion that’s happened around this narrative. We want to turn that into tangible actions – solid and achievable outcomes for our SME business clients. 

Get in touch to find out more about how we can help.