Our clear governance structure helps us embed ESG thinking into every level of the business and ensure everyone understands their responsibility in delivering our ESG ambition. This structure is supported by policies that outline our expectations of our people on key ESG issues.
We have several policies to help set standards of ethical behaviour, including:
- Global ESG policy statement
- Global whistleblowing policy
- Global anti-bribery and corruption policy
- Modern slavery statement
Our local teams also develop and govern their own ESG policies, considering specific legal and cultural perspectives.
ESG and our governance structure
Our governance structure provides oversight and accountability across our organisation. While our Group Executive Board is ultimately responsible for ESG, it’s supported by our Group ESG Board, which is responsible for our business strategy on ESG. The ESG Board is then supported by steering groups that focus on Corporate Impact and Client Services to guide how we implement our ESG approach.
Measuring and reporting our ESG progress
We’ll need to set goals and targets to measure progress in our areas for action in a scientific way. These are mostly set at a local level – except for our global Net Zero commitment, which is set at group level to meet science-based target requirements.
We’re planning to report against the Task Force for Climate-related Disclosures (TCFD) framework, which will help us take a deep dive into the risk climate change poses to our global business. We’re also using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to guide our key performance indicators.
Sharing this progress will become increasingly important to our business, as a growing number of clients look at ESG as a differentiating factor when deciding who they want to work with, and whether a business can help them meet their own ESG ambitions.
Drawing on data to track our performance
Data is crucial to understand – and effectively report on – our ESG performance. And managing data can be a challenge. For example, different parts of our business collect and manage different types of data, so we need a solution that allows for cross-department data integration and global collection. We’ll be using platform software, Sphera, to help us collect, manage and analyse our ESG data to fulfil legislative, corporate and client requirements.