Organizing ESG (reporting) has a significant impact on any organization, more than “just” reporting, and more specifically on:
- Change management / culture
- Strategy
- Data & tooling
- Corporate reporting
In this blog the focus is on change management/culture.
At the moment there is significant attention for CSRD, but a positive impact comes from within an organization
Lot of focus on ESG reporting, such as the near future mandatory CSRD rules, and the way organizations will have to report externally about their impact on Environment, Social and Governance. ESG Reporting will have a significant pull for organizations to work hard getting to getting the ESG metrics right for external purposes.
For organizations to have a positive ESG impact though it is not only about how they report on this important and fun topic externally but also (and even more) about the various ESG initiatives they undertake as an organization to make a positive impact.
Inspire collaboration and creativity as ESG business differentiator.
Taking initiatives by employees in any organization can be daring and challenging because it is not in the DNA of an organization. The focus of management is on day-to-day issues or management simply does not know where to start.
To my firm believe the start of any success for taking initiatives is to bring employees (and other stakeholders) together and stimulate their creativity. Inspire the collaboration and the great ideas that people can have together. Organizations will be surprised about this enormous power of collaboration and creativity which can be a business differentiator.
Collaboration and creativity are key value drivers for management to focus on when it comes to ESG
As savvy management guru’s we were educated and made aware of the business value drivers which are of significant influence on the performance of an organization.
A definition of a value driver is “a factor which determines influences the value of an organization in a significant way and can be of both financial and non-financial nature”. Examples are technical knowledge, patents, a strong brand or a high NPS.
Fast forward to ESG; with the increasingly fast rise of ESG and impact on almost any business model it is important to start looking for value drivers for management to focus on when it comes to ESG. For me one of the differentiators is maturity an organization when it comes to collaboration and creativity; a strong ESG culture makes an organization much more resilient and flexible for challenges.
Hence the statement that “collaboration and creativity are value drivers for management to steer on when it comes to ESG”.
Monitor return on the time invested in collaboration and creativity by connecting KPI’s to these value drivers.
When an organization starts to organize collaboration and creativity this will also mean that the people who are involved in collaboration will be taken away from their day-to-day work. From a business perspective this can only be done when there are positive returns from investing this time. Management therefore will want to monitor the time invested and the results from the collaboration and creativity sessions. As with any business project there will be no direct return on investment. Progress can be measured though for instance by setting up KPI’s. Example KPI’s are:
- Number of initiatives
- Number of collaborations
- NPS employee engagement
- Time spend on collaboration
Let me know when I can help setting up collaboration and the resulting creativity within your organization.
