By Rusen Kumar
Creating an ESG strategy and framework is not an easy task. There will be challenges and issues in planning an ESG strategy in your company. Your company has to perform well in both the environmental and social sectors. For this, here we are providing some guidance, which will help your company in making ESG and sustainability strategies.
To focus on practical aspects of operating in a sustainable world, the company needs to develop a Group level ESG and Sustainability framework for their business that aims to align all the business under a common sustainability vision.
The three strategic pillars that support this framework are:
- Responsible Stewardship,
- Stakeholder Engagement and
- Future Ready.
Responsible Stewardship
Responsible Stewardship is the first pillar of ESG and sustainability strategy. Every company must design a group-level ESG and sustainability vision. Every Indian business needs to outline and process the development of policies, technical and management standards and guidelines that conform to international standards such as UN SDGs, IFC, OECD, UNGC, ISO, OHSAS and India’s BRR Framework. These documents must steer their business activities towards excellence that lead to or become best practices in their sector. Installation of capable management systems will help companies to excel across all the three verticals of sustainability; economic, environmental and social.
Stakeholder Engagement
Stakeholder Engagement is another pillar that connects it to the most important components of the sustained existence of a business – stakeholders. The company’s institutionalized channels of interactions with the stakeholders provide the company with perspectives on internal and external scenarios that have the potential to impact their businesses. Through engagement with its strategically selected stakeholder’s company can work out the key issues and trends to identify the external factors that pose risks to their business. Hence, every company must establish various thought exchange platforms with key technical experts and strategic stakeholders to gain knowledge on critical parameters and stay abreast with evolving industry paradigms.
Future-Ready
Future-Ready is continuously shaping Indian business strategy to minimize the risk and maximize the opportunities that various future trends and externalities have to offer. Future-Ready thought process helps businesses to chalk out appropriate mitigation, adaptation and transformational programmes against the potential risks. Anticipating the future and developing capabilities to leverage the opportunities is what makes a business risk resilient and future-ready. The risk-map developed by Company’s Group Sustainability Department can be used as operational guidance across their businesses to map the company’s current status and develop a strategy best suited to mitigate the risks.
About the Author
Rusen Kumar is a well-known thought leader in Corporate Sustainability & Responsibility (CSR in India. The is the managing editor at India CSR.
