ESG strategy, risk and opportunity identification Is your ESG Strategy clearly defined with risks and opportunities appropriately identified and managed?

Why Grant Thornton

ESG measures can be complex and wide-ranging. We can help you decide where your key priorities lie, whether that’s with climate change and transition risks, environmental impacts, sustainable and ethical supply chains, inclusion and diversity, current and future tax implications or reporting and communication. Our expert teams around the world collaborate to ensure that our clients are seeing the big picture, and their place within it, while also doing this for our own business.

Supporting the unique needs of our clients

Each organisation will have specific requirements and goals. Your first step in establishing your ESG strategy should be to ask these core strategic questions and considerations.

Questions to ask yourself:

• How can you bring your ESG priorities to life across your organisation? 
• What opportunities could ESG bring to your organisation, and how can you take advantage of them? 
• What would a credible carbon/pollutant reduction strategy look like for your organisation? 

Things to consider: 

• How do you effectively engage the board and your wider organisation with the ESG agenda? 
• How can ESG be embedded into your organisations business strategy? 
• What is the impact to profitability with a greater ESG focus, what is the impact of doing nothing?
• How inclusive and diverse is your organisation and what impact does this have on your ability to attract and retain talent you need?
• What skills and resources do you need to support your ESG ambitions, where are the gaps and how will you fill these?
• Do you understand, and have you modelled, the impact of current and future tax policy across your business and key geographies? 
• How can you effectively take advantage of tax incentives available in the UK and globally? 
• How can you align your M&A strategy to reflect ESG considerations? 
• What opportunities do you have if you base your funding around 'sustainable finance’? 

Establish your requirements:

• Whichever reporting framework or standard you choose, we can help you identify the specific disclosure requirements which must be followed. These will inform the level of detail that the strategic plans need to address
• If you have regulatory driven reporting requirements such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (‘TCFD’), we can help you work through the required specific strategic, risk and opportunity assessments