Whether it’s having sound environmental practices, being a truly purpose-driven organisation, or taking a lead in areas such as corporate social responsibility, organisations all around the world are choosing to adopt good Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices. Not only that, ESG practices are increasingly fundamental to not only being a high-performing organisation, but also a highly innovative organisation AND an organisation that is seen as an attractive investment.
Sustainability (and ESG) can be a true business differentiator and can unlock new opportunities for your business.
But with opportunity comes risk, and sustainability risk needs to be managed in ways that go beyond traditional risk methods.
According to Archer's Global ESG Practice Lead, Peader Duffy, "Risk fundamentals are still valid. If they are correctly applied, they can underpin a 21st century competitive advantage of ‘Sensing and Anticipating’ what’s around the corner and ‘What Matters Most’ to the achievement of business objectives. The challenge, however, is in driving accountability, delivering data driven actionable insights and informing managers where they are on their E, S and G transition pathways."
Peader also makes that case that, "Attempting to do this without a formal governance framework, without considering the risks around the business and without underpinning technology, is near impossible. And that’s even before considering the external factors, such as the regulatory environment a business operates within, or your suppliers and third parties and the impact they can have on how you achieve and enforce your own sustainability goals."
So how do you overcome this situation?
Archer’s Business Manager for South-East Asia, Huzefa Goawala, states that “being a sustainable organisation isn’t just about setting goals, it’s about executing on them, it's about monitoring them, it's about living by them.”
For risk and ESG practitioners alike, a living and breathing framework to set and measure the performance of ESG initiatives is an essential tool in their dialogue with key stakeholders, including senior management and the board. They need to speak the same language as the organisation’s decisionmakers, and explain the business case around sustainability initiatives, while also being able to manage the risks and opportunities that surround them.
By using technology to bring together data from different sources – both inside and outside the organisation – and driving engagement on an ongoing basis, a view can be gained of how their business is performing from a sustainability perspective.
As a technology provider in this space, Archer IRM provides its customers with a SaaS platform to establish a governance framework, to capture objectives and to manage risk in relation to those objectives and take the right actions to move forward.
To bring your sustainability goals to life, and make them sustainable, the platform enables monitoring progress, charting improvements over time, and driving the right actions to the right people at the right time through workflows and alerts.
To learn more about how Archer IRM can help bring your ESG goals to life please contact one of our experts.
About the author
Sam O'Brien is VP Sales & Go-To-Market, APJ at Archer Integrated Risk Management