What is an ESG strategy?

A strategy is a plan to reach a goal. In that logic, an ESG strategy is a plan to achieve long-term value and positive impact by addressing environmental, social, and governance goals to attain higher sustainable status within an organisation.
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The essence of any strategy involves establishing various tactical positions and trade-offs to effectively achieve business purposes and goals through developing a roadmap.
The essence of any strategy involves establishing various tactical positions and trade-offs to effectively achieve business purposes and goals through developing a roadmap.
In the case of an ESG strategy, the organisation must first measure its environmental, social, and governance issues and opportunities, as well as understand the drivers, stakeholders, and expectations of ESG reporting and disclosure to set clear vision, targets, and priorities, and align them with the business strategy and culture. The second step is finding the middle ground between a tactical position and the goal to gain a competitive advantage, which is essential for companies to outperform competitors in the industry. 

Why is an ESG strategy important?

With increased pressure on companies to be accountable for improved productivity, quality, technology, and management systems, today’s market calls for sustainable profitability. This can be achieved thanks to an effective ESG strategy, which works as a guide centred on the three pillars: safeguarding the environment, addressing pertinent social concerns, and ensuring responsible governance.

According to the organisation’s goals, there are four possible approaches to an effective ESG strategy: focus on the businesses’ unique challenges and later report results and success to stakeholders; measure targets, these metrics will provide further insights and allow for a deeper rooted actions that will result in long-lasting sustainability; have management on board, their commitment will percolate to all levels of the organisation and set an example for collaborators, employees, and even clients; create value, no matter what the issue or challenge is, the solution must create long-term value that addresses current and future needs.

Among the most common benefits of applying an ESG strategy are cost reduction, reduced regulatory and legal intervention, and employee productivity uplift. This results in organisations generating sustainable profits and practices.

What is GHD doing about it?

In an age of global industries and continuous development, GHD is committed to providing strategic consulting to clients and communities on innovation, politics, communication, social security, organisation, business, competition, and design. We unlock the potential value of our clients and their industries, like energy, water, transportation, real estate, telecommunications, environment, industry, and government.

We have a trusted advisor team of data scientists, system engineers, asset management specialists and business experts to bring out the company’s best sustainable improvements. We handle asset management, business strategies, digital transformation, and people movement to provide valuable insights and recommendations in aligning our clients’ performances to customer demands and industry requirements and to empower the company’s team in identifying business value and establishing firm decisions.

Here are some examples of GHD’s successful projects on strategic advisory services:

With GHD’s data-driven consulting services, we provide a strategy map and identify new opportunities and strategic insights. We successfully transform our clients’ processes to generate value and achieve their business objectives.

Articles referenced

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Harvard Business Review 2023, ‘What is strategy?’ retrieved June 6, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Ik1OB4TaE

MindTools n.d., ‘What is strategy?’ retrieved June 6, 2023, from https://www.mindtools.com/a5aekl4/what-is-strategy

Porter, Michael 1996, ‘What is strategy?’ retrieved June 6, 2023, from https://hbr.org/1996/11/what-is-strategy

The Strategy Story n.d., ‘Communication strategies: Explained with types & examples’, retrieved June 6, 2023, from https://thestrategystory.com/blog/communication-strategies-explained-with-types-examples/