Industry expert urges organisations to build ESG as part of their business

Alistair Djimatey, Head – Foundation & Corporate Affairs at Blue Skies Ghana LTD. (M) speaks during the seminar

Alistair Djimatey, Head – Foundation & Corporate Affairs at Blue Skies Ghana LTD. has urged Ghanaian businesses to build ESG as part of their operations to remain relevant.

“A time will come where you won’t be in business if you do not comply. You owe it as a responsibility to yourself and future generations to ensure that you do what is right”, he remarked.

Speaking during a UK-Ghana Chamber of Commerce (UKGCC) and British International Investment (BII) seminar on “Environmental, Social & Governance Management System (ESGMS): A Business Compass for Navigating a Fast-changing World”, Mr. Djimatey added that businesses must be proactive, instead of reactive, in managing ESG. This, he suggested, may be accomplished by consistently engaging stakeholders and putting the right systems in place to support ESG policies.

Dzifa Amegashie, Head – Corporate & Investor Relations & Partnerships at CalBank Plc and seminar panellist, also suggested that businesses could sensitise anti-ESG voices on the value of ESG, in addition to having a high-level commitment to ESG at the board level.

ESG: communicating risks and managing challenges

Environment, Social, Governance (ESG), according to Chukwudi Iwuozor, an ESG Executive with BII, is a framework to assess how a company manages risks and opportunities that a rapidly changing world creates.

Mr. Iwuozor identified climate change and ecological collapse, high investor expectations and activism, and evolving stakeholders as some of the factors affecting companies in the 21^st Century. Locally, businesses are facing monumental pressure from customers, regulators, investors, industry peers/competitors, and others.

ESG managers, therefore, must be able to properly communicate these risks to management, and guide their businesses to take urgent and necessary actions to manage the risks and take advantage of inherent opportunities.

For Ernestina Osei-Peprah, Group Compliance Manager – Miro Forestry Developments LTD. and panellist, ESG managers could communicate these risks by highlighting the loss of time and resources, potential harm to labour, potential damage to company reputation, and their consequent impact on the company’s profits.

Concurring with Mad. Osei-Preprah, Mr. Iwuozor added that it is important for managers “to have a basic understanding of legal requirements in your sector so it helps you put arguments across convincingly”.

Panellists, however, acknowledged that challenges exist that impede the implementation of ESG systems. Some of these challenges include difficulty in collecting data/inadequate data and difficulty in complying with some external requirements which do not translate well locally.

George Kporye, Sustainability & Corporate Affairs Advisor – Golden Exotics LTD. Ghana, nevertheless, maintained that businesses should not dismiss the challenges but strive to overcome them over time.

“You have to be transparent and honest about the challenges. The important thing is the commitment to do it”, he advised.

The panel also discussed the impact of illegal mining on their operations and how organisations can move away from greenwashing to creating actual impact.