Quadrant Knowledge Solutions Market Insights research provides detailed insights on the drivers behind the much talked about ESG concept and why organizations should consider integrating ESG risks with their overall risk management framework for improved resilience and agility.
ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) has risen to prominence in recent years. Organizations have started focussing on building a robust ESG strategy to mitigate the associated risks. Environmental factors determine the company’s focus on environmental issues like pollution, waste management, carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and more. Social factors illustrate how a company treats people and its disposition towards the human laws, it includes various factors like employee relations and diversity, labour laws, human rights, working conditions, health and safety. Governance factors decide how a company is governed and oversees corporate policies. It focuses on board diversity, business ethics, shareholder rights, executive compensation, transparent accounting, corruption, lobbying, and others.
Organizations have become more aware of the environmental and social issues at large, and are trying to operate in a responsible way to create a positive impact on society. They have grown increasingly conscious of their business’s environmental and social impact, hence including ESG principles in corporate decision-making. Businesses are experiencing increasing pressure from investors and governments alike to focus on ESG. Investors and shareholders are demanding that organizations should focus on sustainable business over short-term profit. Regulators and policy-makers are equally interested in ESG as it ensures strict corporate involvement to address environmental and social issues. Governments are enforcing policies and regulations which is pushing organizations to be transparent about including ESG as part of their strategic decisions. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the ESG agenda and highlighted the impact of social and governance risk factors to the organization’s bottom-line.
According to Divya Baranawal, Research Director at Quadrant Knowledge Solutions, “Organizations which can effectively manage ESG risks are seen as more agile, resilient, ethical and dependable, and hence attracting investors and customer loyalty. Even company’s financial performance is increasingly getting affected by environmental and social factors. The right approach for effective ESG risk management is to integrate with existing overall risk management framework.” Divya further adds, “The next generation of risk management solutions will need to collaborate and integrate with company’s various business systems and diverse third-party data sources for better decisioning and ESG risk mitigation. Also these technology solutions will need more maturity in their AI and ML technology to be able to automatically remediate broader set of environmental and social risks, comply with diverse and emerging global and local ESG regulations, and foresee new and evolving ESG risks.”
Table of Contents
What is ESG and Why is it gaining prominence?
- ESG definition and what each element includes
- ESG related policies and regulations enforced by governments worldwide
- Drivers for increased ESG policy adoption
How can Organizations Effectively Manage ESG Risks?
- Quadrant Knowledge Solutions guidance for firms to effectively manage their ESG risks
Integrating ESG with Risk Management Framework
- Integrated GRC and ESG approach
- How vendors are doing it- examples
Final Word and Way Forward
This Market Insights is a part of Quadrant’s Integrated Risk Management practice.
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