Sustainability governance: the foundation for sustainability performance
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Our solution for sustainability governance
From setting up a corporate sustainability office to identifying key interfaces to involving the executive board in the steering committee’s quarterly meetings: establishing an efficient system of sustainability governance is a prerequisite for successfully meeting the diverse challenges of corporate sustainability.
Sustainability governance is more than just better management. Regulations such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the EU taxonomy, and the forthcoming Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) require companies to establish the structures and processes necessary to ensure that these legal requirements are fully and correctly met.
For comprehensive governance of ESG issues, companies must develop an organisational structure, establish committees, and define clear responsibilities and roles for sustainability issues. Our expert teams work closely with you to determine the best way to achieve these goals, and the degree to which existing structures can be optimised, thereby taking into account your unique needs, organisational structure, and organisational history. Successful sustainability governance also includes detailed procedural measures, which our experts establish or further develop for you.
Our approach to sustainability governance
Each company has specific ESG-related responsibilities that have evolved over time, and these responsibilities influence how ESG issues such as environmental management, legal, finance or HR are handled. It is therefore important to take these into account. Today’s governance challenges typically include:
- Establishing a project organisation with steering committees for the implementation of a multi-year CSRD project
- Establishing expert committees consisting of lawyers, communicators, and environmental experts to address the Green Claims Directive
- Defining responsibilities for specific ESG data points related to environmental (e.g., water consumption or CO2 emissions) or social (e.g., occupational safety or supply chain audits) issues all the way to the requirements of the EU taxonomy
- Simply put, the first step is to establish a centralised entity or role responsible for coordinating all the sustainability management efforts.
Thanks to our holistic approach, our experts can (further) develop your specific ESG governance and, thanks to their many years of experience, ensure its auditability by external companies.
Our experts involve employees working in your company’s key ESG hubs as well as all relevant contacts in the departments and control entities responsible for collecting and securing the data necessary to meet the ESG requirements.
Our solution for ESG governance
To establish and further ESG governance in your organisation, the following points are crucial:
Corporate organisational structure: | We help you define and further clarify the roles and responsibilities, e.g. ESG control managers. |
ESG data management: | In accordance with the CSRD-compliant materiality analysis, we assist you in developing data requirements catalogues and defining responsibilities. |
ESG process and project management: | We design thematic processes and projects and firmly integrate these into your corporate processes in an auditable manner. |
ESG control environment: | We ensure that you can fully meet your ESG requirements. In addition, we establish an Internal Control System (ICS) for you, further develop it, and test the adequacy and effectiveness of your ESG controls. |
Auditability: | We ensure that your enterprise is auditable by external companies – for example, by performing dry runs – to check how well you comply with the respective ESG requirements. |
How you benefit
Our experts not only help you achieve compliance with the ESG regulations but also improve your sustainability performance so that your company and its business processes are well-prepared for the future. Thanks to our flexible, interdisciplinary team structures, we always adapt to meet your individual needs throughout the entire process.
Contact
Thorsten Janker Partner Frankfurt on the Main
Gina Osterloh Senior Manager Frankfurt on the Main
Moritz Sckaer Partner Cologne
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