3 ways to improve your ESG score: Environment

What does ESG stand for?

ESG - environmental, social and governance criteria are a set of socially conscious standards used by businesses. Reporting on these standards helps companies get closer to being value-led and contributing to real-world change. In this three-part article series, we’ll be taking a look at the ways in which you can improve on your ESG scores - in this particular article we’ll be looking specifically at the environmental element. The recent failure of the COP26 summit means society is looking to businesses to influence change in mitigating the effects of the climate crisis and acting more responsibly. Consumers are readily holding brands accountable for their planet-destroying actions so there’s no better time to start building on the foundations of your environmental strategy.

How are environmental scores ranked?

Environmental scores are ranked by how companies can best manage their energy and resource consumption, waste or pollution, and interactions with animals and nature. They also take into account whether the product or service itself is helping to improve the environment. In order to understand how to improve your environmental ESG scores, first you must come to grips with why these improvementsneed to be made and what are the biggest issues our world is currently facing.

What are the main environmental issues we now face?

Getting companies to face the truth People are being led to believe that we have more time to combat rising temperatures than we actually do, so avoid immediate action. Changing climates are already evident in more extreme weather events, crop failures, fires, glacial retreat and melting ice-caps. If companies continue to avoid the truth, our planet will only deteriorate further. Greenwashing Climate deniers have always existed, often formed by major corporations who don’t want to change their profitable, unhealthy business practice. However, what we are now witnessing is a shift wherein the same people who previously denied climate change are pretending to care to further benefit themselves. Rather than spending millions disputing the climate crisis, they are now adopting greenwashing strategies to look like the ‘good guys’. Restoring nature Put simply, there isn’t enough nature to combat the emissions we are producing as a society. It is therefore pivotal to restore vegetation, not just conserve it.Conserving oceans Human consumption puts fish stocks under immense pressure and has a knock-on effect on marine ecosystems. Not only this, but global warming, underwater minings and pollution are decimating our fish stocks. Impact on communitiesVulnerable groups, such as women and children are disproportionately at risk of poverty, displacement and sickness due to the climate crisis. Flooding, drought, water shortages are becoming more severe and are causing mass starvation.

How to improve your ESG Score - Environment

So, those are our biggest issues when it comes to the environment, but how can you, as a business, begin to help?

Behave like an activist

Businesses should develop new personas as activists and share, loud and clear, what differences you’ve made. A good place to start is your employees - you could incentivise them to live more sustainably and consider how to make these choices more accessible for them. Then it’s a case of looking at your consumers and how you can provide them with ways to have more sustainable lifestyles.So, who’s doing it well? Take Levi’s, for example; they encourage their customers to wash their jeans as little as possible, as CEO, Chip Bergh famously claimed to have not machine washed his jeans for over 10 years. Internally, they have developed their own finishing technique ‘Water<Less’ which saves up 96% of the water used in the denim finishing process. Not only do Levi’s adopt this technique themselves, but it is available to other companies, encouraging industry-wide change.

Collaborate with rival businesses

In order to create change, we must develop revolutionary ways of thinking. Businesses need to act as mediators and moderators by collaborating with their rivals to shift the industry. Big impact requires action from the top - if the big dogs are seen to be working together to create change, a ripple effect will begin. An example of this is Diageo’s partnership with rivals Unilever and Pepsico to launch the first ever 100% paper-based spirits bottle for Johnnie Walker whisky. The rivals worked together to launch Pulpex Limited, a sustainable packaging company that aims to drive change across the sector.

Be nature positive

There’s a lot of talk about ‘net zero’, which is a great goal to work towards, but why not go one step further and become nature positive. This meansregenerating the land your business depends on and halting or reversing any damage to natural habitats. Jordans Cereal is a great example of this - working alongside the Wildlife Trusts, Jordans are informing their growers on how to improve the land and practice sustainable, restorative farming. The Jordans Farm Partnership assigns each farmer an advisor from their local trust to make sure at least 10% of their land is managed for the unique mix of wildlife on their farm.

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