An environment of ever-increasing expectations on corporate leaders to do the right thing when it comes to sustainable business means it’s an issue to be taken seriously from the board-level down. The identification, active management, mitigation, or elimination of ESG risk from your operating model is a vital part of building a sustainable business that makes a positive social impact as well as delivering a profitable business for shareholders.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals provide a useful high-level framework for assessing your firm’s ability to deliver sustainability outcomes and is increasingly used by global firms as the core 17 areas for reporting their sustainability focus in their annual report.
You can map the 17 UN SDGs against your current operating model to identify the areas where your firm is making a positive or negative social impact. This exercise could assist in the analysis work before a transformation programme begins, ensuring that the development and deployment of the target operating model incorporate sustainability outcomes.
Ever-increasing community expectations around what businesses are doing to reduce ESG risks and deliver a positive social impact for a full group of stakeholders means that thinking about what a responsible operating model for your business incorporates can help the process of positioning your firm ahead of the curve.
Boards and senior executives might consider assessing their current risk management framework to identify whether the broad array of ESG risks as some choose to define them are present in their existing risk register.
Environmental, social, and governance risks can be much harder to quantify than many financial or operational risks. Firms should develop a defensible framework for estimating the cost of these risks and the severity of their impact on the operations of the business.
The business case for making significant investments into projects that reduce these risks and enhance the enterprise value of your business is clear. Increasingly, firms that do not take these issues seriously or engage in a press-release driven approach will find it difficult or impossible to raise capital.
Institutional investors in 2020 expect well-aligned corporate behaviours and communications on sustainability issues with their preferred responsible investing frameworks than even five years ago. Investor relations and corporate access teams at investment banks will have higher rates of inquiry from stakeholders who may previously never have engaged with them, and that means that the operating model for an investor relations function or corporate sustainability function needs to adapt and improve as part of the core operating model of the business, instead of being tucked away in a small department.
Goal 8: Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all
Goal 8 is about sustainable growth that cares about people. Eradicating global poverty depends on increasing the quality and compensation levels of workers around the world through raising productivity and sharing some of those gains.
In many developing countries, having a job doesn’t mean that your family is out of poverty. Roughly half of the world’s population lives on less than US$2 a day even with global unemployment around 5.7% according to the UN.
“Sustainable economic growth will require societies to create the conditions that allow people to have quality jobs that stimulate the economy while not harming the environment. Job opportunities and decent working conditions are also required for the whole working age population. There needs to be increased access to financial services to manage incomes, accumulate assets and make productive investments. Increased commitments to trade, banking and agriculture infrastructure will also help increase productivity and reduce unemployment levels in the world’s most impoverished regions.”
Some of the detailed sub-goals associated with Goal 8 include per capita economic growth, higher levels of productivity supported by investment in technology, a focus on high-value-added services, implementation of development-oriented policies, and eradicating forced labour and modern slavery.
8.1 Sustain per capita economic growth in accordance with national circumstances and, in particular, at least 7 per cent gross domestic product growth per annum in the least developed countries
8.2 Achieve higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation, including through a focus on high-value added and labour-intensive sectors
8.3 Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services
8.4 Improve progressively, through 2030, global resource efficiency in consumption and production and endeavour to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation, in accordance with the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production, with developed countries taking the lead
8.5 By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value
8.6 By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training
8.7 Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms
8.8 Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment
8.9 By 2030, devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products
8.10 Strengthen the capacity of domestic financial institutions to encourage and expand access to banking, insurance and financial services for all
8.A: Increase Aid for Trade support for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, including through the Enhanced Integrated Framework for Trade-Related Technical Assistance to Least Developed Countries
8.B: By 2020, develop and operationalize a global strategy for youth employment and implement the Global Jobs Pact of the International Labour Organization
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/economic-growth/
Board and Senior Executive Considerations
Boards and senior leaders will see that, like the other SDGs, there are several areas where any business can make a positive social impact. Procurement processes need to ensure that risks such as forced labour and modern slavery are not in your supply chain.
When you assess your current operating model, the key areas to explore when considering Goal 8 include people and culture processes and policies. If you are in financial services, finding what actions you could take to support the achievement of goal 8.10 would be a key focus. If you are in transportation or travel, exploring sustainable tourism such as going beyond net-zero or carbon neutral and thinking about carbon-negative operating models that create local jobs where you operate your business would be worth consideration.
The use of the UN SDGs as a high-level framework to map your current operating model against the ability of your business to deliver a positive social impact is a useful exercise for businesses. Many leading global firms already incorporate this reporting in their annual reports.
The decade ahead will be necessary for firms as they strategically position themselves to be ahead of their competitors on ESG issues. Moving beyond reporting and engagement to actively choose where your operating model (people, processes and systems) can adjust to improve positive outcomes or reduce adverse consequences will be tables stakes.
Institutional and retail investors are growing their awareness of ESG risks and expectations of the pace at which boards and senior executives will respond decisively if any controversies arise. Waiting it out or sending out a press release won’t cut it. Resignations and ending supplier relationships will become far more frequent and building a responsible operating model with in-built flexibility that can respond if a critical supplier needs to be changed because of an unacceptable level of ESG risk will increasingly mark the leaders in this space distinctly from the laggards.