Do businesses need to look beyond the bottom line and assess the widespread impact they have?
The emergence of ESG investing, ESG compliance, and the focus on sustainable business models are an indicator of the changing investment environment and patterns. Organizations have also realized that growth and positive ESG impact may not be mutually exclusive. Top-performing companies with strong stocks also score high on the ESG ratings and are therefore preferred by investors.
The UN study “Who Cares Wins” first introduced the concept of ESG to the world. The study showed that ESG factors have financial relevance and can provide vital information to the investors like vision, strategy, purpose, management philosophies, and other critical non-financial data that determine business outcomes.
Although the ESG sector is still expanding and growing, it now has a new group of stakeholders, the ESG influencers. These ESG influencers are using their voice and actions to talk about ESG and its diverse scope to address environmental and social challenges. Spearheading dialogues around sustainability, climate change, greenwashing, diversity, and equity, these change agents are shifting the conversation from the market to people and the planet.
This blog lists some of the most vocal and impactful ESG influencers. Learn more about how they are contributing to the ESG initiative by offering climate technology solutions, driving business with purpose, and building communities.
What are the ESG Influencers talking about?
Climate change has impacted the last person in the remotest part of the planet. Scientific evidence suggests that GHG emissions, deforestation, and burning fossil fuels are the primary contributors to global warming. The melting ice sheets, rising temperatures, and warming oceans are the visible impacts of climate change.
The social quotient of the ESG proposition includes dialogues around diversity, employee relations, geopolitical situations, and the communities within which the business operates. ESG influencers are driving the conversation around the S of the ESG ecosystem.
The Governance part of ESG is often overlooked but is essential for realizing the E and S goals of the ESG proposition. Corporate structure, policies, board, and ethics impact business performance, brand perception, and employee and investor relations. ESG influencers passionate about sustainability also discuss how businesses need to level up to meet ESG goals through internal policies, structure, and framework-related decisions.
Let us look at some top ESG influencers and learn more about the issues they address.
Robert Eccles
An expert on integrated reporting who helps companies and investors create sustainable strategies for their businesses, Robert Eccles is the founding chairman of the SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) and International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC).
Robert is a thought leader who has penned several books, has a column on Forbes.com, and examines trustworthiness in business. In his book The Integrated Reporting Movement: Meaning, Momentum, Motives, and Materiality, he talks about the Board of every company publishing “The Statement” to outline its role in society and its efforts towards sustainability goals. Robert’s academic associations include his stint as a visiting professor at the Said Business School of Oxford University and a tenured professor at Harvard Business School.
Shiva Rajgopal
Are managers stewards of the corporation’s resources, is corporate culture a firm’s biggest off-balance sheet asset? Shiva Rajgopal, the Kester and Byrnes Professor of Accounting at Columbia Business School, tries to answer those questions through his op-eds in Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, and Barron’s. His research focuses on ESG and its implications, the efficacy of corporate governance, and the contribution of corporate culture to workplace productivity. Recipient of various scholarly recognitions, Shiva Rajgopal believes in integrating theory with practice to discover solutions for business problems.
Emmanuel Faber
Emmanuel Faber, the chair of the International Sustainability Standards Board, is a rock climber, nature lover, and business leader passionate about sustainability. As the CEO of the food company Danone, known for its regenerative food and agricultural practices, he created Danone Communities as a part of social business experiments for inclusion. Under his leadership, Danone became the only stock market-listed company in the world to report its financial earnings on a scope 3 CO2 adjusted basis. Emmanuel also founded and chairs One Planet Business for biodiversity inclusion and soil health, G7 Business for inclusive growth coalition, and is a member of the UK G7 Impact Taskforce.
Janine Guillot
Janine comes with a three-decade-long experience in senior leadership roles in the financial services sector. As the CEO of Value Reporting Foundation, she shares her understanding of how enterprise value is created, preserved, and eroded with businesses and investors. Her initiatives focus on implementing Integrated Thinking Principles, Integrated Reporting Frameworks, and SASB standards to progress toward globally accepted corporate reporting standards. Janine is also the Director of Capital Market Policy and outreach at the Sustainability Standard Accounting Board.
Florian Berg
A research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Florian Berg’s area of work covers sustainable investing, ESG ratings, and lack of agreement between various rating agencies. He is an active blogger, and his blogs provide insightful analysis on various ESG-rating related topics. His academic research papers focus on coherent methods for ESG integration.
Alex Edmans
Alex Edmans is a professor of Finance at the London Business School and the academic director of the Centre of Corporate Governance. Alex is a passionate speaker who presented to the World Bank of Directors as a part of the Distinguished Speaker Series, and his two Ted Talk videos have a combined view of over 2.5 million. Alex’s Ted Talk called the Pie Growing Mindset throws light on the correlation between businesses and society and how the former can have a social impact while creating wealth for their investors.
Julian Kolbel
Julian Koebel, is a Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth (CSP) at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on climate, ESG, and corporate social responsibility, and his scholarly articles discuss pertinent aspects of corporate sustainability and investor impact.
His paper Understanding Sustainable Finance provides a comprehensive overview of all the components of Sustainable Finance. His recent project, ‘ INVESTOR IMPACT LAB’ intends to investigate how pro-social preferences translate into real economic impact. It also aims to assess how ESG ratings, business goals, and investor activities interact and influence one another.
Roberto Rigobon
Professor Rigobon is a well-loved teacher and a researcher who has worked extensively in the areas of international, monetary, and development economics and has shed light on economic phenomena like inflation and financial crisis that affect several countries simultaneously.
He founded academic projects, The Billion Prices Project, and co-founded the PriceStats, monitoring online retail prices to research macro and international economics.
Ray Dhirani
Ray Dhirani is the Head of Impact Management at Tribe. Ray is an economics graduate from Wharton School who went on to head the Sustainable Finance Team, where his work covered areas like climate change, food systems, and deforestation. In this role, Ray collaborated across the financial spectrum; banks, regulators, investors, and policy-makers to achieve sustainability goals.
Ray champions the cause of fairness, diversity, and equality that need to be embedded in the financial systems to meet environmental and social goals.
Elisa Moscolin
Elisa is the VP of Sustainability at Sage, a cloud-based accounting software solution, and a very vocal advocate of sustainability. As an ESG expert, Elisa partners with executives and Boards to develop strategies to meet their sustainability goals.
She co-authored a case study in partnership with KPMG that explored how businesses can engage with SDG in a manner that makes sense. Elisa is a strong advocate of a data-driven sustainability strategy that helps in identifying priorities and driving engagement.
Rebecca Marmot
Rebecca started her career with training in Marketing and PR however she found her passion in sustainability and profit sharing across value chains as a part of her work at Unilever. She has successfully run the Safal Shuruat program in India around hand-washing and immunization while establishing the Unilever soap brand Lifebuoy as a leader in its segment. Unilever’s success story is a perfect example of how ESG goals can be aligned with business goals to generate value for all the stakeholders involved.
Anjuli Pandit
Anjuli Pandit is a leader and influencer in more ways than one. She is the UK Head of Corporate Sustainability at BNP Paribas. As a Sustainable Finance professional, her work includes climate action, developing eco-sustainability products, and building relationships with external stakeholders like government bodies. As an ESG influencer, Anjuli reminds people that they need not be activists to pursue sustainability goals. Big sustainability goals are achievable through smaller everyday initiatives.
Nico Roseberg
Nico Roseberg surprised many when he moved from F1 to sustainability. Nonetheless, Roseberg leveraged his credentials as an F1 driver to create awareness regarding sustainable mobility and powertrain technologies. His Greentech Festival is a unique global platform for green startups to showcase the latest developments in the field of sustainability.
Beatriz Perez
Beatriz Perez is a Senior VP and Chief Communications, Sustainability, and Strategic Partnerships Officer for The Coca-Cola Company. Apart from her diverse responsibilities, she drives the global leadership’s commitments toward ESG goals. Bea believes in businesses and communities coming together to solve problems. Her commitment to her goals reflects in her honest assessment of the gap between what ought to be and what is happening.
Laura Franceschini
Laura Franceschini is a part of the Global Sustainability Strategy and Operations at Google and made it to The Sustainability® Magazine Global 50 Women in Sustainability Awards 2022. Laura has been working on business and environmental issues and their intersection for over 15 years. She has led sustainability programs at Stantec, the global design firm and for Yale Centre for Business and Environment.
Laura talks about the significance of Women’s Leadership in creating sustainable and circular solutions to achieve SDGs by incorporating diversity and inclusion.
Richard Burrett
Richard Burrett is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Earth Capital, an equity investment group deployed in the sustainable technology business. Richard comes with over three decades of banking and finance experience and is role as the Managing Director and Global Head of Project Finance, he developed the Equator Principles to manage environmental and social risks within project financing. He is a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and a non-executive Director for Triodos Bank UK and Union Bank of Nigeria.
Burrett talks about sustainability disclosure, sustainable investment, climate action, and sustainable finance.
Alexandra Palt
Alexandra Palt is the Chief Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility Officer of L’Oréal and Executive Vice-President of the L’Oréal Foundation. The fashion industry is one of the biggest environmental polluters, therefore when a brand like L’Oréal promulgates sustainability through its ad campaigns and social initiatives, the impact is big and wide.
Alexandra launched L’Oréal’s sustainability program called “Sharing beauty with All”, she is vocal about women and their role in addressing climate change and shaping social and environmental innovations. In alignment with that, she launched the Women4Climate initiative and has mentored Women4Climate cohorts. Alexandra Palt has a background in law and human rights and was associated with Amnesty International at the beginning of her career.
Kate Brandt
Kate Brandt is the Sustainability Officer at Google and is responsible for Google’s sustainability initiatives across the value chain. Kate is the recipient of the Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest civilian award given by the US Navy in recognition of her work in helping the Navy go green. Outside Magazine recognized her as one of the top 50 women to create the biggest impact in the world. Kate was also the first Federal Chief Sustainability Officer and extensively promoted sustainability in federal government operations. She talks about how technology can help fight climate change and carbon-free energy alternatives accelerate climate action.
Christopher Raymond
The aviation industry is working towards achieving its net zero targets by 2050. Christopher Raymond is the Chief Sustainability Officer at one of the biggest airline designing and manufacturing organizations, The Boeing Company.
Raymond is responsible for the ESG initiatives and strategies of the company, stakeholder-oriented engagement, market insights, partnerships, and investment for sustainable innovation. He also leads the enterprise-level feedback funnel for Boeing that entails engaging, informing, and seeking feedback from the stakeholders across the value chain to ensure their concerns get represented in the company’s goals.
In addition to his role at The Boeing Company, Raymond is a member of the Clean Skies for Tomorrow Coalition and MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium. He also advocates for the International Aviation Women’s Association, an international organization for women holding positions of impact in the aviation and aerospace industry.
Daniel Schmid
“There’s either sustainable business or no business.”
The above statement is by Daniel Schmid, the Chief Sustainability Officer at SAP believes sustainability for businesses is not an add-on topic or good to have factor anymore. At SAP, Schmid asked relevant questions and listened to various stakeholders to set sustainability goals. His efforts resulted in sustainability getting embedded in SAP’s core business processes and one of the key reasons for its successful implementation.
Schmid talks about ESG, impact, NetZero, and social responsibility and emphasizes that businesses need to move beyond compliance to sustainability embedded in business models and services for long-term impact and success.
Conscious Consumerism is the Way Forward
ESG as a framework is a step in the direction of conscious consumerism. It is more than a buzzword or a compliance requirement, sustainable financing, investment, and business models are here to stay. These global leaders and influencers are driving not just the conversation around ESG and sustainability but their work displays how business goals can be in alignment with the SDGs.
The American journalist and satirist H L Mencken’s famous quote proclaiming “businesses are above hangman” stands disproved and irrelevant for the present times. Businesses today need to concern themselves with non-financial factors like environment, social, and governance to ensure sustainable value creation for their investors and stakeholders. It is no longer a voluntary choice, neither in terms of reporting and compliance nor for business expansion and growth.
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