Beyond Sustainability Reporting: Realising the Value Proposition of ESG

As the demand on companies to make greater efforts towards sustainability and decarbonisation increase, more organisations are making sustainability commitments and looking to showcase their ESG credentials. ESG reporting has become the way for companies to disclose such commitments and seen by many as a way to hold companies accountable to their sustainability commitments. However, meeting globally agreed targets will require companies to move beyond reporting.  

This panel aims to provide perspectives that will transform the sustainability conversation in Hong Kong. Rather than continuing the current conversation on ESG initiatives and complex reporting exercises, this panel will share various proposed and successfully enacted models for sustainable business growth. 

Learnings 

• 2022 has made clear the many limitations of ESG reporting as a mechanism to guide companies towards more sustainable practices, with news reports of greenwashing and incorrect or incomplete disclosure. There is also a growing disconnect between the commitments reported by companies, and what is actually achieved.  
• These limitations are highlighted by recent research which found that of the companies that have made commitments to net zero, 93% of them are set to fail on achieving these commitments, it is clear that reporting is often not linked to business action. New ideas for sustainable transformation and a renewed business case for sustainability are needed. 

Post-Event Actions 

• Rethink how your company can best take stock of internal and external considerations towards ESG reporting and streamline efforts to actualise sustainability commitments and transformation.  
• Rethink your company’s approach to ESG reporting, renew and refresh efforts to achieve actual business transformation based on new sustainability-related opportunities.