Prepare your company for the growing focus on ESG by using OGSM
OGSM for ESG
Businesses are the most trusted institutions and are expected to take a larger role in solving societal problems, according to recent results of the global Edelman trust barometer. In addition, investors, clients, employees and other stakeholders attach an increasing importance to the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance of an organisation. The world is changing as an ever growing number of businesses, investors and consumers shift to creating and supporting sustainable products and services. CSR performance is increasingly measured by a set of criteria and reporting standards, ESG.
OGSM for your CSR or ESG plan
Where CSR or ESG policies used to be mostly cosmetic, today companies are increasingly held accountable by investors, employees and consumers. How do you present your ESG plans in a coherent way to these stakeholders? And how do you keep track of ESG performance when it concerns infrequently measured data that is not captured through your traditional BI-systems? OGSM offers a solution!
Your ESG plan structured with OGSM
OGSM helps you structure your ESG plan, offering a systematic and disciplined approach to develop, communicate and execute your business strategy meeting ESG criteria. OGSM consists of an Objective, Goals, Strategies, KPIs & Actions (also called Dashboard and Action Measures). These are the building blocks of any effective business plan, and will help you align ESG criteria with your business goals.
Corporate ESG data reporting
With corporate ESG reporting, companies enhance transparency by providing quantitative and qualitative data on their activities in three areas: environmental, social and corporate governance.
By voluntarily providing data following ESG criteria, companies consider their impact on sustainability issues and are transparent to their investors, customers and other stakeholders on how they mitigate risks and generate sustainable long-term financial returns.
Companies that take their environmental and social responsibilities seriously and have strong governance have demonstrated better financial performance and resilience. In fact, a study by BlackRocks shows 81% of a globally representative selection of purpose-driven companies with better ESG profiles outperformed their counterparts in 2020, despite a market downturn. Their strong ESG performance is also valued by investors and leads to preferential treatment compared with low performing companies.
Example ESG in OGSM
ESG Environmental
The company demonstrates how they consider climate change, carbon emissions, air and water quality, deforestation, energy efficiency, waste management, pollution, biodiversity, and natural resource conservation. They provide the actions the company takes to manage the environmental impact of their business.
Example Environmental plan in OGSM
Environment tends to get most focus in an ESG plan. The example below shows an extensive Environmental plan in OGSM of a real estate company. The OGSM actually shows two underlying environmental plans, one for Climate Mitigation and one for Climate Adaption. Climate Mitigation is focused on CO2 reduction, while Adaptation is focused on reducing climate risks for their buildings.
The real estate company wanted more insight on what they actually contributed to the goals of CO2 reduction. Using OGSM helped tremendously to structure all the projects and develop KPIs measuring to measure CO2 reduction. That doesn’t mean there isn’t also room for fun actions to keep this topic lighthearted and inspiring, as well. With the regular actions up and running, specific plans for Climate Adaption can be added, to assess and reduce climate risk for the portfolio. Using OGSM, this company delivers an integrated and complete Environmental Strategy.
ESG Social
The Social criterion communicates how a company impacts their people, customers and the broader community. It consists of: customer satisfaction, data protection and privacy, labor standards, employee engagement, community relations, human rights, gender and diversity.
Example Social plan in OGSM
Most companies want to invest in social responsibility but struggle to transform aspirational talk into action. The main challenge is to stay close to direct stakeholders – customers and employees – and focus on their needs. The example below shows how a real-estate business focuses their Social Strategy on the well-being of their tenants and quality of living and backs their promises with measurable actions, such as number of square meters of green space implemented on properties and efforts to make affordable homes more available.
ESG Governance
Governance considers transparency of a company’s business ethics and culture as well as processes and procedures of good governance. Factors examined are: leadership, board composition, audit committee structure, bribery and corruption, executive compensation, shareholder rights, and internal controls.
Example Governance plan with OGSM
Corporate governance should ensure decision-making that balances the best interests of all stakeholders – including customers, employees, regulators, local communities, and shareholders. Below is an example showing strategies for stakeholders. The strategy ‘transition to green financing’, the execution of which leads to actual reduction in interest costs and qualification for a Green Bond, adds value for shareholders and shows corporate sustainability is not only about saving the planet but also delivers in terms of ‘hard cash’.
Become a transparent organisation: deliver your ESG with OGSM
Many organizations already convinced their stakeholders by using OGSM to deliver their ESG objectives. We can guide you to make the first steps and provide you access to examples so you can move forward realizing your sustainability ambitions.
Frequently asked questions about ESG
ESG is short for Environmental, Social and Governance. These are the three dimensions that are relevant for Corporate Social Responsibility: doing business in a way that benefits society as a whole.
More and more companies make an ESG plan: this includes all the goals and actions they have defined to improve their Corporate Social Responsibility performance. Not only regulators, but also other stakeholders like employees and consumers attach increasing importance to a good ESG policy.
Stakeholders value companies more if they deliver to the highest standards in Sustainability in the broadest sense, including Environmental, Social and Governance.
There are many different formats available, but we recommend using OGSM to build your ESG in a coherent way and monitor progress.
OGSM Software saves you a lot time, by gathering automatically all the data you need from owners of specific Measures and Actions. You will see the updated ESG in your OGSM.