ESG driven business transition Will your organisation embrace change?

Why Grant Thornton

Our understanding of embedding change is far-reaching. We help ensure your organisational and behavioural change is effective. Your focus may be on climate change opportunities and physical risk assessments; transitioning to a low carbon footprint; improving D&I and human rights best practice; calculating the return on investment from ESG initiatives or supply chain strategies. We provide big picture thinking, and the attention to the detail to ensure your entire value chain is on board.

Your organisation is unique, and you will need to establish a set of criteria for successful transition and embedding change.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Do you understand the ESG priorities of your board, shareholders, lenders, customers and staff and how they can be embedded in your business?
• What resistance is there to change?
• How can you review your value chain to reduce emissions and reach net zero?
• How can you improve efficiency and reduce costs through minimising waste, pollution and the use of natural resources?
• How can you ensure a positive return on investment and attract financing into your organisation with an ESG conscious portfolio?
• How can you minimise future risks of ESG litigation?
• Inclusion and diversity is a key challenge, how can you establish an objective understanding of where you currently are and what can you do to improve this and embed the change your stakeholders need to see?

Things to consider:

• How should you approach the business change that your ESG strategy requires?
• Do you understand how investment in ESG can drive value across your business and the choice of ESG metrics that will maximise that value?
• What actions do you need to take across your value chain to realise your strategy?
• What changes to your business model could you make to deliver stronger ESG performance?
• What change is needed to your policies, operating model and culture to deliver your net zero strategy?
• Are you aware of, and have you modelled, the impact of, current and future tax policy on your ROI calculations regarding ESG-driven business change (tax and potential incentives)?
• How should you approach human rights, modern slavery and working conditions across your supply chain?
• Your people are key, does your people strategy enable you to attract, retain and engage the talent you need for success?
• What skills do you need to support your ESG agenda, where are the gaps and how can you fill these. Importantly how can you use such things as apprenticeships to build the sustainable skills that you need around ESG?
• How can you get an objective understanding of how inclusive you are as an organisation and what actions can you take which will have the biggest impact in helping you to achieve your inclusion and diversity goals?