Mumbai (India CSR): The India ESG Summit 2022 – ‘ESG for All: Sustainability First’ was organized by India CSR on 31st May 2022. The summit was organized with the aim to bring together stakeholders across industries and shapers of future businesses to explore, learn and engage in constructive dialogue on the opportunity of ESG and sustainability for businesses.
Sunil Jain, Operating Partner – Energy Transition, Essar Capital, one of the esteemed speakers at the event, made a powerful keynote address to the audience on ESG and its importance at an individual and corporate level.
Jain set the context of ESG by drawing attention to the recent heat wave witnessed in New Delhi and throughout the country. He emphasized on the importance of the concept of ESG i.e. Environment, Social and Governance and the need for it to be integrated and inter-related.
He kick started his speech by talking about the evolution of ESG and highlighted the numerous lapses in ESG witnessed over the last few decades including lapses in governance, environmental disasters and social challenges.
Jain quoted Sustainability being on the verge of a “hockey stick” growth curve driven by investors, regulators, CEOs, employees and customers.
Jain further moved onto emphasizing on how ESG has become a business imperative for corporates where he highlighted how the Board can play a crucial role by utilizing the SCORE framework to link purpose to strategy, establishing and integrating ESG related KPIs into the compensation structure, ensuring appropriate frameworks and reporting mechanisms to support sustainable business in the longer term.
He also stressed upon the role of the CEOs and Management in setting the ESG agenda from the top and also drew the audience’s attention towards the role of the regulators in achieving the country’s ESG agenda.
Jain urged the Government with his views and recommendations emphasizing on ESG being a part of the balance sheet of companies, social metrics being linked to the balance sheet and separation of ownership and management to improve governance.
Jain firmly believes that while Governments and Corporations are increasingly focusing on ESG, this has wider implications even at the individual level and for humanity as a whole. Thereby making the individual also accountable for ‘E’ & ‘S’ through their actions.
He concluded his speech sharing a glimpse of how Essar is transforming businesses through Decarbonisation, Decentralisation and Digitisation. He also spoke about how Essar Foundation is managing the ‘Social’ of ESG diligently, thereby uplifting the social fabric in the areas of business operations.
