What is ESG and what does it mean for tech?

Environmental, Social and Governance criteria are become more established in deciding if a company is being investable. This means all businesses should explain how they address their environmental impact, play a positive social role, and have robust governance procedures in place.

Investors and stakeholders are becoming increasingly aware of company performance in this area and a summary of a recent techUK webinar is below.

•         ESG is action, reporting and communicating on what a company is doing to leave a positive impact on the world. This has been driven by a mixture of regulation, investor action, NGO pressure and company culture shifts.
•         Environmental criteria are well understood and regulated, but the social element is less so and dynamic but would include for example what a firm is doing on worker wellbeing, diversity and inclusion or gender pay.
•         Companies that do best at ESG do so by having board level oversight and embedding it across all functions – for example in procurement, HR, and into financial decision making.
•         For tech firms they can emphasise digital skills, energy reduction potential and its role in data collecting and helping improve transparency of businesses. Real time reporting on ESG activity is increasingly an option.
•         The investor sector has been essential in shaping ESG criteria and helping invested companies implement ESG programmes.

To learn more what techUK is doing on ESG and sustainability please get in touch with [email protected] or [email protected].