Everything You Must Know About Getting Started With ESG Reporting
In recent years, investors have started emphasizing more on the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues apart from the profit of a business. These issues have been gaining traction from regulators all around the world. As a result, ESG reporting has become more important now than ever and requires companies to report how their business practices impact environmental and social sustainability. Though voluntary in several countries, ESG sustainability reporting is slowly becoming necessary for businesses.
However, ESG reporting can be challenging. In order to implement the ESG framework, you must understand some basics to help you get started. So let’s delve deeper and understand all you need to know to get started with ESG reporting.
Steps to Get Started With ESG Reporting
When starting ESG reporting for your business, there are some steps that you should remember to ensure a smooth and hassle-free ESG implementation.
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Create an ESG Strategy
Firstly, decide the short-term and long-term goals of your business’s sustainability strategy. While creating your ESG strategy, ensure involving the decisions of all the relevant stakeholders. Furthermore, you should constantly review the strategy and adjust it according to the evolving needs and goals of the business. When this happens, do not forget to update the stakeholders on changes regarding your strategy.
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Gather Internal Information
While gathering all the information needed to create an ESG report may seem challenging, you can find a lot of input internally. Collect ESG-related information from different departments and stakeholders. Why? Because this will simplify your data analysis process! Furthermore, accuracy and reliability are important aspects of collecting data. A lack of these aspects can render the report inaccurate and unreliable. The best part? Technology and software make the entire data collection and analysis process easier.
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Choose the Right ESG Reporting Framework
Usually, there is no right or wrong when selecting an ESG reporting framework for your business. There are several ESG reporting standards, and you should select the one that best suits your company’s specific requirements (who you are reporting and what information you want to report). Some of these ESG reporting standards include the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the International Reporting Financial Standards (IFRS), Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), and the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
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Ensure Transparency and Reliability in Reporting
Transparency is critical to ESG reporting. But how can you achieve transparency? By developing the right processes for your business! For this, you need to find the right metrics allowing your company to identify and capture the ESG activities and their impact on sustainability. Although these metrics differ from company to company, they should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound). Why? To track your company’s achievements and progress over time!
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Communicate Your ESG Report With Investors
The final step is to communicate the results of the ESG reports to your stakeholders, investors, and the public. Inform them how your ESG practices align with your business strategy. Be transparent while communicating your progress to assure stakeholders of the accuracy and reliability of the information in your ESG reports.
Summing It Up!
ESG reporting has helped businesses gain a competitive advantage with employees, investors, and customers. With the right tools and techniques, ESG reporting is not as complicated as it may seem. However, if you still face challenges in your ESG reports, you can always outsource your reporting requirements to an experienced service provider.
DataTracks, with its 17+ years of experience, ensures reliability and accuracy in all your reports. The professionals at the company have successfully delivered more than 220,000 compliance reports to over 21,500 clients. So if you are looking for trusted ESG reporting services, get in touch with an expert @ +31202253702 or email: enquiry@datatracks.eu TODAY!