Detailed Guide on What to Include in Your ESG Report
ESG reports provide qualitative and quantitative insights on three core initiatives: Environmental, Governance, and Social.
These reports outline your company's plans and objectives within these parameters and can assist with attracting investment and tracking performance.
But what should you include in an ESG report?
ESG Report: Environmental
This section within an ESG report provides insights into how an organisation can embrace environmental stewardship. The term encompasses a range of activities and initiatives aimed at preserving and protecting the planet.
Beneath this section, the report will go into detail about minimising waste, reducing carbon emissions, and conserving natural resources, among other topics, and include subsections like:
Combating Climate Change
Emphasise the importance of reducing carbon emissions.
Overview of your company's efforts to combat climate change.
Specific steps your company will take/is taking to reduce emissions.
Preserving Biodiversity and Improving Air and Water Quality
Introduction on the significance of preserving biodiversity and improving air and water quality (regarding what it means for your company).
Reveal what your company is doing or planning to do to preserve biodiversity.
Managing Waste
Explain how your organisation will responsibly manage waste to reduce its global footprint.
Responsible Resource Usage and Supply Chain Management
Measures your company is taking/will take to use resources responsibly.
Strategy detailing how your company will undertake responsibly manage its supply chain.
ESG Report: Social
In this ESG report section, your company should detail its efforts to enhance people's lives, focusing on the social activities that will help accomplish this. Social subsections will include information about:
Nurturing People and Workplace
Describe your strategies for employee retention and growth — including plans to implement a safe and healthy work environment.
Highlight your company's plans to invest in employee development and training programs.
Inclusion Initiatives
Explain your initiatives to embrace gender equality and diversity initiatives in the workplace, including BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and differently-abled inclusivity programs.
Relay your strategies to promote an inclusive workplace culture.
Employee Engagement
Detail the actions your company will take to foster employee engagement and motivation.
Explain your efforts to introduce feedback mechanisms to improve employee satisfaction.
Data Protection and Privacy
Relay your company's commitment to data protection and privacy for employees and customers, in addition to the importance thereof.
Elaborate on the changes to company policies and procedures that prioritise data privacy and security.
Highlight how employees will be trained on data protection and privacy best practices.
Community Involvement
Begin by summarising the importance of community involvement in building and expanding your company's reputation.
Detail strategies to improve your corporate social responsibility and community outreach initiatives, specifically how you'll encourage volunteerism and philanthropy on a corporate level.
Human Rights and Labour Standards
Elaborate on your organisation's policies and practices to uphold human rights and labour standards and how these standards will extend to partners and suppliers.
ESG Report: Governance
This section in the ESG report should detail the measures your organisation intends to take to combat corruption and safeguard the longevity of its investments proactively. It also includes a range of strategies and policies to promote transparency, accountability, and ethical decision-making across all levels. By revealing these measures, your organisation expresses its commitment to mitigating the risks associated with corruption and upholds its commitment to sustainable growth and success.
The subsections under "governance" will explain:
Leadership and Board Composition
Answer what will be the policies and principles governing leadership and board composition.
Executive Compensation
Explain the procedures around executive compensation, including how your company will embrace fairness and transparency in such payments.
Audit Committee Structure
Summarise the importance of audit committees to maintain accountability.
Explicate the policies your company will use to govern the audit committee's structure.
Shareholder Rights
Detail the value of protecting shareholder rights to your company and the policies you intend to implement to uphold these rights.
Political Contributions
Demonstrate the policies you will implement to govern political contributions and improve transparency surrounding these contributions.
Whistleblower Programs
Summarise the need for whistleblower programs in a company and how the programs and procedures to navigate whistleblowing.
The purpose of an ESG report is to relay your company's commitment to transparency and social and environmental investment as the cornerstones of your business's growth strategy. To communicate these efforts effectively, partnering with a company to develop your ESG Report is crucial.