Sustainability Reporting Conference

Closing Remarks...

We got a good flavor of the regulatory environment walking you through the enormity of the task at hand to create a predictable and implementable regulatory framework to capture some of the greatest needs this generation and the next must grapple with. However, what we’ve also heard is that governments are not as agile and reactive as the market needs them to be.

Companies and the market often take matters in their own hands which may be risky once regulations do get enacted.

One way to preserve the needed trust and transparency in the process is through assurance. A 3rd party builds credibility and is even more important when the processes often enacted by the market moves faster than a Regulation. We were walked through some of lessons learnt through Bureau Veritas’ experience on how to make it easier and digestible. And gave us some food for thought on how to accelerate the entire process.

Finally, we got insights from the perspective of the implementor and perhaps a different perspective on the why. Why be driven to make change? What an integral role technology plays in the implementation of a sustainability strategy today and just what a challenge all of this is.

The challenge seems evermore daunting when you overlay operational and governance obligations over multiple geographies with varying regulatory frameworks in place or still being developed. It’s not easy to hit the bull’s eye when the target is moving – while maintaining stakeholder trust.

One of my observations confirmed during today’s discussion is that trust is linked with transparency.

Soon enough this transparency, to some extent, will be accelerated upon us through regulations such as CSRD – leading to a culture shift in companies within the EU.

Not too long ago, I had a debate with someone on what does compliance with sustainability mean? Can we all reach a number for E, S & G? Will it be like air emissions limits? You’re either below or above the threshold? Or is it like H&S in terms of a limit on lost work hours? Surely we can all agree that the lower, the better.

I think most people in this room appreciate that sustainability looks different to each industry and company. Yes, there are similarities – there is the E, S and G. but the material issues are different for each company or industry. So, how do we build compliance programs that don’t all have the same target? Perhaps the answer lies in a risk-based assessment may take the form of a materiality assessment for the needs of sustainability. Who knows and time will tell, but hopefully sooner than later.

At the moment, we’re seeing a lot of reporting. Disclose what you are doing and how you are improving. Compliance in Sustainability, at the moment, appears to be related either to downward or upward trajectories based on previous reporting periods. This begs the question, as the debate continued, will we ever reach the goal? – whatever that goal is – if we are only every looking to beat our own numbers? My argument to this is we all have to do our part. We all have to show operational excellence. We all need to be heading in the same direction if we want to stand a chance in the future.

One way to preserve the needed trust and transparency in the process is through assurance. A 3rd party builds credibility and is even more important when the processes often enacted by the market moves faster than a Regulation. 

So in conclusion, if these regulatory frameworks align us all in the same direction to achieve a similar goal, then frankly I think we’ve achieved a major milestone as a global and/or European community of responsible businesses.