We’re teaming up with the U.S. Green Building Council Los Angeles (USGBC-LA) and the Los Angeles Sustainability Executives Roundtable (LASER) for an exciting new training series catered towards ESG professionals.
This six-part workshop series provides the knowledge you need to integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics into your day-to-day work and throughout your organization. Created to support anyone involved in developing ESG strategies and initiatives, each session arms you with practical knowledge, tools, and strategies for application.
In this blog post series, we’ll recap each session to give you a preview of the content we covered. For the full experience—including detailed discussions from expert speakers, instant feedback through live Q&As, and valuable take-home resources like the ESG Toolkit—sign up for upcoming training sessions on the USGBC-LA website.
Hosted by USGBC-LA and featuring speakers George Lu (Associate Director, ESG Technical Services, ADEC ESG Solutions) and Sara Hickman (ESG Director, Leading Edge), our first session set the foundations for ESG program development and focused on ESG-specific terminology and global initiatives.
ESG trends and drivers
To start, our speakers reviewed some of the main trends across environmental, social, and governance (ESG) realms, including topics such as:
- Climate change
- Carbon
- Policy
- Risk management
- Corporate governance
- Supply chain management
- Health and safety
Participants were encouraged to consider what these broad topics meant for their organizations, including questions such as:
- How can you integrate ESG into day-to-day operations and where are your risks and opportunities within these emerging topics?
- Moreover, how can you incorporate thinking about these trends into day-to-day operations?
- In other words, what steps can you take to weave ESG and the ESG narrative across your organization, embedding these ideas into everyday operations, overarching strategies, and the company as a whole?
The workshop then shifted focus to some of the forces driving ESG programs, initiatives, and goals. Whether investor pressure, regulatory pressure, or other upstream and downstream influences, ESG professionals should identify who and what are driving their organization’s approach to ESG.
Participants were also encouraged to understand what trends are influencing their drivers. For example:
- What topics are your investors, consumers, regulators, and other stakeholders prioritizing?
- Are low-carbon transition, more detailed reporting, supply chain engagement, or specific governing policies priorities?
- Are specific frameworks like CDP or GRESB hot topics in your organization?
Speakers also discussed different ways to integrate these focused topics into your business in a quantifiable way and make plans to achieve your targets.
Every day, ADEC ESG Solutions works with leading organizations to help them understand the sustainability trends and topics that drive their approach to ESG. Explore how we can help support your Sustainability Journey with solutions tailored to your ESG goals.
Materiality and frameworks
Understanding your material topics and key frameworks is another crucial and foundational part of informing your organization’s ESG policies and goals. In this section of the workshop, our speakers discussed how to identify the ESG issues that are important to the long-term success of your organization. They also spoke in-depth about materiality assessments and their benefits, including how these assessments can provide actionable strategies specific to you and allow your organization to focus and invest into the most impactful topics.
This section of the training also reviewed in detail some of the top reporting frameworks, groups, and aligning initiatives such as:
- CDP
- GRESB
- International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB)
- Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)
- Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi)
- UN Sustainable Development Goals
Speakers also covered the essentials of each standard and initiative, how each structures its scoring, what it prioritizes, and who its target audiences are.
Environmental, social, and governance
Finally, the session concluded with an overview of environmental, social, and governance topics. What are the trending issues right now within each of these subjects, and how are they being addressed by ESG leaders today?
Good governance drives change. While perhaps not the most exciting of the three, it is the backbone of ESG and provides the structure through which real, strategic change is made. More granular issues such as board oversight of ESG, business ethics, and ESG policy create an environment in which your ESG initiatives can thrive, grow, and be supported. Speakers also discussed ways that ESG can be integrated into governance structure—such as sustainability committees—and different ways that governance structures are observed and rated in some reporting frameworks.
Session speakers also reviewed some of the current topics in the environmental and social spheres, including:
- Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions
- Decarbonization best practices and strategy trends
- Popular carbon goals
- Health and wellness
- Social and ethical standards and certifications
- Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA)
- Supply chain management and engagement on crucial issues such as human rights, labor standards, and ethics
Speakers discussed what to consider when addressing the topics above. What specific changes can your organization make, and what steps can you take to integrate these topics?
ADEC ESG Solutions offers tailored, integrated strategies to help you achieve your sustainability goals. We work side-by-side with organizations of every size and in every industry, from ESG beginners to sustainability leaders, supporting programs and plans that enact real-world change. Read more about our clients and their successes to learn how our team might support you on your Sustainability Journey.
