Speakers at the MTN Bright Conversation Sustainability Week have called on corporate bodies to embrace Environmental Social Governance (ESG) standards in their operations to boost the growth of their businesses.
ESG, among others is defined as business models, products and service which contribute to sustainable development.
The speakers are Dr Felix Addo-Yobo, Deputy Director and Advisor on Sustainable Development Goals and Advisory Unit, Office of the President, Participant Engagement and Outreach Manager, UN Global Compact – Ghana, Mina Pokuaa Agyemang and Manager, Governance, Risk and Compliance of KPMG, Mr Bernard Owusu Ansah, disclosed that the ESG had become important in the operations of corporate bodies in view of the SDGs.
Dr Addo-Yobo stated that ESG had become a catchword for the business community and underpinning that ESG was sustainability which was meeting the present need of society without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet same.
Additionally, he said ESG had become the new trend and businesses which embraced sustainability carved, a new niche to gain competitive advantage.
Dr Addo-Yobo noted that businesses should not only be concerned with making profit, but impacting positively on the society.
“ESG promotes trust and customer satisfaction and enhances productivity,” Dr Addo-Yobo stated, adding that businesses should not see ESG as cost but a means to enhance their profitability.
Ms Agyemang urged businesses to prioritise environmental sustainability and explained that ESG helped businesses to measure and evaluate their impact and contribution to the development of the society.
According to her, ESG upheld standards such as human, labour rights, environmental sustainability and anti-corruption, and creating an enabling environment for workers to thrive in an organisation.
Ms Agyemang called for a standardised reporting template for ESG for businesses, saying the different reporting template did not make business sense.
She then encouraged corporate bodies to take advantage of new trends and innovation to integrate ESG in their business operations
Mr Ansah outlined that ESG was not a public relations tool, but an important standards to maintain environmental sustainability.
He explained that ESG encompassed the efficient use of resources and strong ESG helped companies to reduce cost and become efficient.
Moreover, Mr Ansah revealed that it was encouraging that more businesses were embracing ESG, and studies conducted on the Ghana Club 100 members indicated that close to 50 per cent of members, mostly multinational companies in the extractive sector, were upholding to strong ESG standards.
He said regulation was helping pushing the frontiers of ESG, pleading that policies on ESG must not be punitive but must be incentive corporate bodies.
The Chief Corporate Services and Sustainability Officer of MTN Ghana, Adwoa wiafe, said her outfit was committed to sustainability in order to ensure the socio-economic development of the country.
Thus, she indicated, MTN was supporting a lot of initiatives such as digital literacy skills for girls, economic empower rural women and Small and Medium-scale enterprises.
Ms Wiafe said sustainability was a collective responsibility and every individual had a role to play in order to ensure the sustainability of the planet.
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