ESG not about wokeness but a business imperative: Punit Renjen

The concentrate on environmental, social and company governance (ESG) will not be about ethical good, social good, or “wokeness” – it’s a business crucial, stated Punit Renjen, deputy chairperson-supervisory board, SAP SE.

Speaking at a B20 panel on Saturday, Renjen stated companies want to handle the local weather query as that’s what their workers more and more need; that is what underpinned Deloitte’s work on ESG whereas he was heading it. “If I want to hire the very best individuals and I want to retain them, I must have a critical response to that question,” he stated.

Speaking on the identical occasion, Bernard Looney, CEO of BP, stated ESG serves each ethical and business good. “There is no choice to be made,” he stated, however complexity of requirements makes it laborious to implement and should have destructive unintended penalties.

However, the International Sustainability Standards Board’s (ISSB) requirements are too advanced, harm business, and shouldn’t be accepted, Renjen stated. A constructing block method is required as a substitute. Those who’ve endorsed the ISSB’s “alphabet soup” of requirements will “sunset their organisations”, he stated.

At the identical time, the concept that ESG is “woke” must be tackled by companies by instance he stated. “We’re trying to come up with a narrative to counter this false, uninformed narrative that some in the United States are trying to push that this is no business for business to be in, that business should just focus on the bottom line,” he added.

According to ITC chairman and MD Sanjiv Puri, simplicity and clear definitions are key. Further, regulators ought to have the capability to dynamically assessment and replace requirements. “It needs to be a framework that’s adaptable,” he stated. “The quality of reporting from a small and medium enterprise and a large enterprise…it cannot be expected to be the same,” he stated.

Amid the “tectonic shifts” throughout industries within the local weather transition, coverage innovation by an “enlightened” authorities is required, stated Arunava Majumdar, dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Government can facilitate personal innovation with public good, because it did with the India Stack, he stated.

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