How to Integrate ESG Principles into Your Company Culture
ESG principles have become a staple of modern business since the 2000s. The term was introduced in “Who Cares Wins,” a report commissioned by the UN and created by leading financial institutions. Previously, I’ve also discussed the impact of seeking out an ESG employer.
What about a company? How can businesses introduce ESG principles into their culture? For an ESG strategy to work, your employees need to be on board too.
E. Start Thinking Environment-First
This doesn’t mean that all companies should suddenly change their activities to tackle environmental problems. But you should be asking yourself, what could be done better to help the environment?
The answer can be as simple as getting rid of plastic cups at the office and asking employees to bring in their personal cups/glasses. The idea is to get your team involved without preaching. Bringing in a cup to the office is easy, but it gets you into an eco-friendly mindset.
Making sure that your office recycles is another great to show your business cares and have everyone participate. If your city gives refunds on glass and plastic deposits, you could save up enough recyclables, then redeem them and donate the proceeds to charity. It will get everyone involved and feeling good about the endeavor.
The idea is to create simple, non-coercive measures to get everyone attuned to thinking in an eco-friendly way. In no time, your team will be coming up with its own initiatives!
S. Get Involved with Your Local Community
When we talk about a business’s social impact or value, it doesn’t necessarily have to be large charity contributions. It’s about being a part of your community.
Depending on the work you do and how you do it, what defines “community” will differ.
If you’re a local coffee shop, you could try introducing the Naples-born tradition of caffè sospeso. The idea is that any customer can pay for a “pending” coffee for someone in need along with their coffee. Later on, someone in need can stop by and see if there’s a caffè sospeso available.
This kind of practice brings the business and the community closer and does a good deed for those in need.
If you don’t have a geographical presence and work in online services or maybe at a SaaS company, then you could make a commitment to helping organizations that would otherwise be unable to afford you.
You could have employees work a few hours a week to help a local charity establish a better web presence, or perhaps help them set up recurring online payments. You could provide the SaaS subscription free of charge. Employees will appreciate the effort and will be proud of the company.
Organizing a community event also goes a long way toward getting locals to appreciate the business, and is usually a great team-building activity for a team.
The idea is to think about how you could get involved in a community and do it. Most importantly, the slightest steps do count.
G. Be Clear
Governance, being the last point is the easiest and the hardest to implement.
It’s as basic as managing fairly, the way you’d like to be managed.
Everybody knows that rules and practices need to be in place. They also know that there a hierarchy needs to be established in order to define clear responsibilities.
For proper governance, you need to make sure that the rules set are actually followable, realistic, and necessary. As long as the team understands that there’s logic behind your standards, it won’t question them.
The same goes for corporate structure. Make sure it’s clear who’s responsible for what, and who can be addressed should a problem arise. For this point, it’s great to have an open-door policy with management, schedule allowing.
Having an experienced and qualified HR Team will go a long way. If you’re a smaller startup, you probably hired your team first before even setting up an HR department. If you don’t have one, then it’s time to start planning to hire one.
Integrating ESG principles into your company culture shouldn’t be a difficult task.
Start with small environmental initiatives. Come up with ways to get involved with the community. And be clear about who’s responsible for what and stick to it.
With time, some aspects of ESG will evolve and shape themselves as a natural progression, as will your company.
Did your employer introduce any small, but important changes at your company? I would love to discuss it in the comments or via a message.
