Environmental, Social, and Governance

Helping leaders build operational sustainability, employee wellbeing, and positive change

We at Stanton Chase understand that having the right framework for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices at your organization is the most important way for leaders to enact and maintain the sustainability of their operations, the wellbeing of their employees, and their ability to drive positive change.

Our dedicated ESG Practice takes a top-down approach in finding the best teams of executives to power through meaningful change in ESG initiatives. We help CEOs build and foster executive committee as a cohesive team with trust at the core, allowing for open discussion and constructive dialogue.

For companies, the successful recruitment of ESG professionals reveals new business horizons and desired return from sustainable innovations. It also presents new areas of operational, financial, and reputational gains and boosts leadership, compliance, competitiveness, and overall profitability in an increasingly diverse and challenging business environment.

Building an ESG Team

In addition to helping CEOs to assemble the most effective ESG teams, we also work with other leaders to realize their potential in contributing to successful ESG policies. Here’s what that looks like for particular leaders:

•           The CEO must be committed to openly addressing ESG risks without fear of sanctions by investors, regulators, or the board. The CEO needs to drive ESG across the company and consistently reinforce it, creating trust among ExCom members to openly discuss challenges. The CEO must be willing to sanction negative behavior and forfeit short-term profit for long-term sustainability.
•           The CFO, meanwhile, needs to be a champion in measuring risk avoidance and how the company is living up to its ESG commitment. A key driver of the ESG agenda, the CFO should be responsible for developing company-relevant tracking and reporting standards for ESG performance.
•           An ESG specialist on the board constructively challenges the Directors, CEO, and ExCom in ESG matters. ESG “literacy” must be a critical evaluation criterion for new and existing board members.
•           The CSO or Chief Sustainability Officer must be a master strategist, influencer, and doer, constantly challenging the organization to generate strategies on how ESG can contribute to world-class business performance.
•           Heads of investor relations and corporate relations provide a key conduit to external parties, including governments, communities, NGOs, and investors. They act as advisers to the CEO and board on government relations and external positioning.

ESG Areas of Focus

Our consultants’ extensive experience and deep expertise offer in-depth insights into the exceptional importance, perspective, and financial profitability of ESG-based strategies, their ideological and operational provisioning, tailoring of relevant KPIs, monitoring and auditing of processes and results, reporting, internal and external communications, etc. We are here to listen to the concerns of organizations and find solutions. For example:

•           Environmental:

Concerns: Climate change, natural resources, pollution and waste, environmental opportunities

Solutions: ESG strategizing, ESG executive recruitment, and organizational fitting

•           Social:

Concerns: Human capital, product liability, stakeholder opportunities, social opportunities

Solutions: Diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) strategy and roadmap, social strategy and impact, human rights workshops, employee educational programs

•           Governance:

Concerns: Corporate governance, corporate behavior

Solutions: Board services and advisory, transparency metrics, pay equality, board searches and agenda

The Time to Act Is Now

Strong ESG performing organizations will become increasingly attractive to investors, potential and existing employees, and host governments.

The debate around sustainability has moved from a question of “if” to that of “how.” Whether or not a business is prepared to commit to this change, their customers, employees, suppliers, and investors increasingly demand it and are prepared to take their business elsewhere if companies do not act.

Download the ESG brochure