The ESG “Ripple Effect” is real and represents both risk and opportunity for mid-market B2B companies.
The transformative adoption of ESG by public and private organizations is reshaping global business operations, emphasizing that ESG should matter to you whether you are publicly or privately owned.
Consider these key aspects of the ESG landscape:
- Global procurement officers rank ESG as their 2nd highest priority.
- 92 percent of buying organizations require ESG disclosures from their suppliers.
- Regulation is quickly changing and driving compliance risk for suppliers (ex: the California Law on Climate Disclosures, SEC proposed rules, and the EU regulatory landscape, which is now impacting U.S. mid-market suppliers).
Moreover, clients reporting ESG disclosures now recognize the critical importance of their supply chain alignment — as often cited, 90 percent or more of a reporting company’s impact resides in their supply chain.
As supplier selection undergoes transformation, a ripple effect is accelerating through your clients’ leadership teams into procurement beyond its immediate operations, redefining how they conduct business.
Paving the Way
As corporate sustainability adoption accelerates through the supply chain, we commonly hear from our partners that they need help knowing where to begin with ESG and how to sustain an ongoing commitment to transform their businesses and align with their clients to reach their goals. Our ethOs team is uniquely experienced and positioned to support organizations of all types and sizes who recognize ESG as a critical imperative wherever they are on their journey.
ESG Services and Solutions ethOs Offers
Our ethOs team offers several services and solutions you can consider, including the following:
ESG GAP Assessment
This assessment is a key first step in developing an ESG strategy. It helps pinpoint disparities between your company’s existing practices, performance, and the ESG benchmarks you aim to achieve. This assessment is instrumental in helping you and your leaders identify areas that require improvement, fostering better alignment with your clients and the industry sector. Our experts will guide your team through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of your organization, identifying your ESG strengths and weaknesses.
ESG Double Materiality Assessment
ESG adoption and compliance considers complex and ever-changing factors, but not every ESG issue is of equal importance to your organization.
Our view of an impactful ESG strategy is focused on the highest priority topics for your business considering what key stakeholders express as the most relevant to them. Accordingly, we conduct and advise supply chain companies of their “Double Materiality Assessment.” We believe this is a critical step in the ESG journey.
While financial materiality is widely understood by business leaders as the issues and factors impacting an organization’s financial wellbeing and bottom line, our Double Materiality Assessment analyzes non-financial factors and topics your company’s impact has on the outside world of stakeholders — employees, clients, consumers, and communities.
Our approach to conducting a Double Materiality Assessment with your team includes qualitative and quantitative activities. Together, we:
- Develop an internal team focused on conducting the assessment
- Define stakeholders to interview
- Strategically develop a list of key topics for the assessment that align with your business sector and client ESG standards and frameworks
- Engage with stakeholders through a series of surveys, 1:1 meetings, etc.
- Weight and score the results
- Map out an assessment grid of priorities
- Formalize the material topics of importance to feature in your ESG strategy
Strategy Development
Our ethOs team can help you establish a baseline to determine your goals and outline a plan to help you achieve them. Authenticity and transparency are becoming the norm and, thus, the expectation of your clients and other stakeholders. Our approach is unique, as we view ESG adoption as both risk and opportunity. We will work with your leadership team to outline a dual approach — operational transformation and solutions to drive ROI.
Communication
Communication, such as data, measurement, and reporting, are critical expectations when adopting ESG. Our ethOs team can provide input on items such as report planning and data management, among others. We can also provide guidance on external items, such as blogs and website integration.
Education and Training
These two items have become essential with ESG. At ethOs, we recognize that each organization is unique, and we can help customize a program that fits your needs.
Areas of consideration include:
- Executive leadership and Board of Directors
- Management
- Cross-functional and cross-company leaders
- Employee segments
- External suppliers and key strategic partners
Embedded ESG Advisor
ESG is complex and ever-changing, directly impacting your organization’s success. Insights and expertise are paramount to quickly embed ESG into your operations at a strategic level. With ethOs, you can tap into real-world expertise at a fraction of the cost of hiring a Chief Sustainability Officer who may be limited in scope. EthOs advisors provide your organization flexibility and know how to embed ESG initiatives across your organization, ensuring avoidance of “greenwashing” while engaging all your stakeholders. Our leaders can help develop innovative solutions that create a value-added approach with your clients to drive incremental revenue for your organization and identify opportunities and key risks to mitigate and help you avoid costly mistakes.
