Roy Snell (roy.snell@ospreysoftware.com) is ESG Officer at Osprey ESG Software and co-founder of SCCE & HCCA.
“SCCE & HCCA are committed and very excited to help compliance professionals maintain their relevance through a strong commitment to ESG.” – Lisa Beth Lentini Walker, SCCE & HCCA board member
Welcome to the first “ESG and compliance” column. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues have become some of the fastest-growing challenges for organizations. Although ESG has been around in one form or another for a long time, what is happening now is very different, and compliance professionals are uniquely suited to help their organization take ESG to the next level—there is great opportunity and much to learn. Here, we hope to help you in your ESG journey, whatever that journey is.
Up until this point, much of the discussion has been related to the idea that something must be done to improve ESG-related issues in organizations. However, we are now moving from an aspirational era of ESG to an almost panicked atmosphere in our effort to show stakeholders that our organization is actually doing something to meet ESG expectations. This column will help you play the role asked of you by your organization in its effort to implement a process to prevent, find, and fix ESG issues.
All the elements needed to have an effective ESG program can be found in your existing compliance and ethics program, such as auditing, investigation, risk assessment, education, etc. All the interpersonal skills—collaboration, communication, motivation, negotiation, etc.—that are needed to handle occasionally highly sensitive ESG issues already exist in the compliance profession.
We will be involving ESG experts from around the world to help us help you. We will be covering topics that will help you communicate complex and sensitive ESG-related concepts to leadership. We will keep you up to date with the ever-changing ESG standards to stay relevant and successful. Of course, we will also be covering the complicated and evolving international ESG regulatory landscape. We look forward to joining you on your journey.
Gerry Zack (gerry.zack@corporatecompliance.org), Lisa Beth Lentini Walker (lisabeth@lumen-we.com), and I will be taking turns contributing to this column. Please communicate with any of us if you have questions, topic requests, or suggestions for ESG experts you think we should talk to.