There is no doubt that environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments will be the dominant theme of the financial sector and markets over the next decade. About one-third of all assets under management, or $35 trillion of assets under management worldwide, use some form of sustainable investment strategy.
Compared to SMEs, under Directive 2014/95/EU, large companies have several more pieces of information to publish related to environmental and social matters,treatment of employees and respect for human rights, anti-corruption and bribery diversity on company boards (in terms of age, gender, educational and professional background).
While the definition of the European Taxonomy relating to the environment is being enriched and fully defined, at the same time the Social Taxonomy currently in proposal form, presented by the Platform on Sustainable Finance to the European Commission on last February, is making its way into the European legislative landscape.
How do you communicate your commitment and achievements within an Environmental, Social, Governance plan?
GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) is the independent, international organization that helps businesses and other organizations take responsibility for their impacts, by providing them with the global common language to communicate those impacts. It provides the world’s most widely used standards for sustainability reporting – the GRI Standards.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership.
If the beginning of the year 2022 has brought great innovations in the development of legislative issues concerning the financial disclosure envisaged by many companies in the process of due diligence in the area of sustainability, this is largely due to the European Union's proposal concerning the 'Corporate sustainability Due Diligence Directive', CSDDD for short, published last February 2022.
The Sustainability reporting, introduced for European companies with the EU Directive 95/2014, represents to date in the international reporting landscape, the starting point of a continuously evolving path that aims to meet numerous challenges, first and foremost the integrated management of non-financial information, structured in a framework that can be as comprehensive as possible, to be placed alongside classic financial reporting.
It has become increasingly fashionable in recent years, within corporate governance policies, to emphasise a corollary of measures and principles, as defined by GRI 405 or the SASB method, a cornerstone of human capital and its related management: inclusion, diversity and equal opportunities policies.
When one thinks of an economic system in harmony with nature and the land, the shape of the circle always comes to mind, of the interconnection and nature that from a source becomes capital and then returns to transform itself into ever new elements.