Welcome, everyone, to this Financial Times Webinar held in partnership with Workiva on the future of ESG and sustainability reporting. My name's Kenza Bryan. I'm a Moral Money Reporter at the Financial Times. We have a newsletter three times a week reporting on the drive for a better world economy, and we also publish all the time on the climate and the markets section of the website. So we've got about 40 minutes to chat about the future of ESG sustainability standards and reporting, how it affects the world of investment, how it affects the real economy, how it affects all of us. And we'll also have about 10 minutes of Q&A, so please do put your own questions down in the chat box on the right-hand side of your screen.
I am very pleased to introduce Emma Keller, Head of Sustainability at the food and drinks company Nestlé UK and Ireland, then from Workiva, the software company, we've got Mandi McReynolds, Head of Global ESG. We've also got John Ostergren, Chief Sustainability Officer at the engineering company Smiths Group, and then Rui Teixeira, Chief Financial Officer at the utility company EDP and EDP Renewables, so thanks all for being here, and I'd like to ask all of you in turn, starting with Rui, about the regulation that you see coming down the line. We have things coming in 2023 from the U.S., from the E.U., and then we've also got a lot of voluntary standards being developed by the likes of ISSB.
So I wonder if you could just tell us a bit about the external parameters and constraints you're seeing in your line of business when it comes to ESG reporting. So if we could start with you, Rui.
Yeah, sure. Well, first of all, thank you very much for the invitation to be part of this webinar. It's really a pleasure to be here with the remaining members of the panels. I would say that, I mean, and actually, let me just step back. I think regulation plays a huge role in our power sector, in the utility sector, in the renewable sector, where we develop our strategy and our activity. It's clear that as of for many years already, climate change was at the center of the business strategies within the power sector. The energy transition was something that, from a European perspective, and also from a U.S., with different maybe with different contexts, was a veer to.
So effectively, we have been working for at least a decade towards the energy transition, meaning that moving away from fossil fuels, moving much more into renewables with the goal of decarbonizing the economy. Because of the unfortunate events that we currently see still happening in Ukraine and the war, division from Russia into Ukraine, now it's no longer a net zero or energy transition towards the climate change purpose, but it's also about security of supply. And all of this has been set in a very strong regulatory context, again, different perspectives between Europe and U.S., but, very given the strategic importance of the sector for the different countries, of course, there is a very strong regulatory setting for the business per se, which then gets translated into how also we report what we are doing.
So it's actually, I think, regulation here typically lags behind what are investors' requirements, how investors are looking to the different companies and trying to understand really what is the strategy that you are implementing towards your ESG requirement. Are you looking more into the environmental side? Are you looking more into the social aspect of the governance? So having a regulation that effectively sets forward what are the parameters that you need to report, to me, I think it's super critical. Similarly to my commitment in terms of reporting the financial standards, I need to report the ESG. So the regulation that it will come, I'm sure that many companies within some sectors will struggle to actually implement, audit, make sure that they certify some of those requirements.
I think there are some sectors that I would say our sector, and of course, particularly EDP, we have been preparing ourselves for the last 10, 15 years to actually be very clear about how we are meeting those ESG requirements. So in that sense, I think just it will be actually, I think it will help to make sure that all of us, we are showing to our investors, to our stakeholders, effectively what we are doing in each of the dimensions of ESG.
Rui, I'm just going to jump to Emma. And just to get a few very concrete examples from you of how external factors and regulation are affecting how you in your industry consider ESG right now, Emma. Just some very quick thoughts on that.
Yeah, absolutely, and I guess the key theme what we're seeing in a whole different bunch of regulation that's coming through is really drive for transparency, so for companies to start reporting and disclosing, and that's coming from many angles. Regulatory is just one, but we've all seen, of course, the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures that's upon many of us, so we now have to disclose and report and assess how we are going to be affected by climate risk and how that's going to impact our financials. We know, of course, at the moment, there's a lot of discussion around how do we advance that into the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, which is going to be even more challenging. We've just about as businesses got our head around carbon, looking at nature is absolutely important.
And of course, COP15 is happening now in Montreal, but a lot of work needs to happen there. And then we've had things like the Plastic Packaging Tax that have come in that have no doubt changed the way businesses are looking at how we package and how we look at that. In the U.K. also, we've had health regulation come in, the high fat, sugar, salt regulations that are coming in, which are making us have to, again, disclose and for retailers in particular, look at where they position certain products. So there's a whole raft of regulation in the broader ESG space that's coming. We'd argue most of it is really good, and we need regulation. As Rui says, it's about leveling the playing field and driving that continued progression. So it's coming thick and fast.
As businesses, that's something we are good at adapting for, but it's really about how do we make sure that the regulation is actually helping us collectively to achieve the things we need to achieve, which is getting to net zero, restoring nature, and ensuring affordable and accessible food.
I love the emphasis on nature there straight away. We've been reporting on the COP in Montreal, and we always want to hear more about it. Mandi, let's jump to you and particularly get a perspective from the U.S. on what's top on your radar in terms of regulatory constraints.
I think when you look at the constraints, we looked kind of globally, so not only in the U.S., but around the world at 13 different global markets, 1,300 practitioners like all of us on the panel that are responsible for environmental, social, and governance disclosure, and what we learned from that is they are trying to tackle it both from the U.S. side to the U.K. to the E.U. to Singapore, and not all regulation is completely aligning, and so one of the comforts that we share with companies is it's like tax, right? As you have tax regulation roll out in different countries, as you have it roll out in different states, wherever you may be, we've learned to live in that regulation.
But it's so true what the other panelists like Emma has said is that people are waking up to do this every day, not because of regulation, because it is the business imperative to operate. And if they don't do it, they will not have investors, employees, or consumers. So we're really seeing this push of regulation catching up and then navigating that as it has looked at it globally with some alignment, but local decentralization and how we'll tackle that in the year to come.
John, what about in the engineering world? What's on your radar? How much of this is being driven by investors as opposed to regulators?
Great question, great discussion, and I'll add a few thoughts. So again, first, thanks for the opportunity to join the panel. Second, in response to the questions, I agree with everything that's been said to be easy. From an engineering sector perspective, I would only say equally strong as my co-panelists that the drivers fundamentally are purpose and value, first and second. And the way we see regulation is through the lens of those two primary objectives. Regulation is a tool for ultimately efficiency and accuracy in the communication and quantification of those things that do deliver on purpose and create value. And for us, that's exciting. It's a lot of work. I won't pretend. And it's a lot of opportunity as well. Opportunity that has this purpose-driven, very important twist, so to speak. This is not an ordinary commercial opportunity.
This is, in the truest sense, a purpose-driven and essential commercial imperative, if you will. So we have lots of great, well, for better and worse, we have lots of opportunities in order to help our customers meet their commitments, and we learn a lot from meeting our own.
Yeah, and I look forward to talking about the opportunities that this creates. There's a question that's just come in from the audience that I think is actually too good not to ask, even at this early stage. And it's about the political context. I mean, I was intending to ask about the energy crisis, about the various economic crises, but actually, at the moment in the U.S., we're seeing something incredibly specific, which is a backlash against ESG, ESG positions and reporting. So question from Catherine Wilson. Maybe we could ask you, Mandi, what impact will the anti-ESG legislation and positions taken by certain U.S. states, certain U.S. officials have on the ESG reporting space?
I think as you look at it overall, it comes back to values translating to value. So building on what John said, when a company has closely tied what they're standing up for and doing with environment, social, governance, and it's completely tied to business value drivers, they are staying the course. They're not backing down because, like any other business decision, it has risk, opportunity, and cost. So what we're finding in the U.S. market is, regardless of different political noise or backlash, companies are still moving forward. I do think it has built a sense of 2023 being the year of transparency and accountability, which is why regulation driving assurance, auditability, transparency, tagging with comparability is going to be key for the noise to stop and for companies to progress forward.
Yeah, confidence in this data is such a huge theme here, avoiding greenwashing, promoting the role of auditors in all of this, so lots to get into. I wonder if we should just get out of the way some of the nitty-gritty that we are all going to be interested in. How should all of this data be reported, so one just quick-fire question for you, Rui. Should ESG and financial reporting cycles be aligned?
Absolutely. Absolutely. The moment I'm reporting my financials to my investor community, I'm sharing with them the financial health of the company. If my strategy is an ESG-driven strategy, so my commitment is that by 2030, I'm carbon neutral. 2025, I'm carbon, I'm coal-free. I have to report to my investors as well. How am I going to get there? How am I progressing? What am I doing on the governance front? What am I doing on the social front? So to me, it's no longer reporting of financials. It's really report me the status of how you are progressing on the performance and strategy of the company. And if that is truly an ESG strategy, yes, then I should meet the same requirements for both types of data.
And John, as we see some jurisdictions move towards very strict reporting standards of this type that say, you've got to put the data into financial statements. It's got to be audited. It's got to be as accurate as any of your other data. Does that create any kind of risks for you of having approaches from different jurisdictions that are all very specific, but that might be saying slightly different things? I wonder how you, what your strategy is to align with all of those things.
Sure. It does create risk, and with every risk is a flip-side opportunity. Of course, like with, I think, essentially all regulation for a global enterprise like Smiths, one of our interests is it always going to be in as much uniformity as possible. That's always beneficial. That's always helpful, and it's always an opportunity to simplify and ultimately achieve the purpose of the regulations, which is communication of accurate information to our stakeholders so that they can understand our performance, and I could not agree more than with Rui's conclusion that ESG information is financial information. It's information that our stakeholders are using to make financial decisions, and we recognize that fact, and that's the way we approach the reporting, so yeah.
Yeah, thanks for that, John. Emma, it'd be interesting to hear from you. I imagine that Nestlé has to contend with reporting, not only reporting on water and on carbon and on climate risk, but also incredibly specific things like the palm oil value chain or the cocoa value chain. Does a top-down approach suit Nestlé? What kind of approach would you be looking for from regulators?
I guess that's the key point here is that we know where regulation should be driving us, and what we need to make sure we're doing as a business is putting in place those enabling data systems to make sure we have that single source of truth, so at any point, we can really understand where we are on that journey, no matter what the regulatory framework in different countries is requiring us to report, so we do that as Nestlé. We have really sophisticated databases that look at, well, where are we on our deforestation commodity journey, and so we can report across our top commodities. We're currently at about 97.5% deforestation-free, and we're working on the rest. We know at any point where we are with our human rights chain. We know where we are with particular certifications.
It's really important that we have that because having that same single source of truth that we can report in different contexts, because we're not just getting the answer from regulators, we're also getting it from our customers, from our shareholders, and our investors who really want to understand, as everyone's pointed out, the financial and the environmental and social and governance health of the business, which is absolutely crucial.
But in terms of who defines that single source of truth, would it be helpful for you, for example, to have regulators, monitoring groups come together and define how one would disclose deforestation data, for example?
It is essential, and that's where the likes of the Science Based Targets initiative have been really important and fundamental for businesses to align on their net zero goals. And really, once you're verified, you know we're all on that same pathway. We've all used the same method because, as everyone's pointed out, yes, there's huge risk of greenwash or of just people reporting and not being able to compare apples with apples, so having those standards, and we're seeing more and more of those come through, many post the COP26 and COP27, and I'm sure we'll see a lot more on nature coming out of COP15, but yes, those standards are essential.
Mandi, let's just turn now to the role of technology, to all these exciting new projects coming through. I mean, in some of the stuff that I was sent from all of you guys, you'd use these words like next-gen reporting and dynamic data. What does it all mean? What is dynamic data, and what's the most exciting thing about it?
I think there's three exciting factors because innovation exists today. To build on Emma's example, right, coming into one source system where you can look at all these disparate sources of data, whether it's any of us around the table, you can have up to 700 different data points. And for it to have the auditability, the credibility, and the trust, the single source of truth is going to be key. The second part is what Emma talked about is different stakeholders want different information, and you know too, right? It's an investor wants this much, but a regulator wants this much. And the ability to tag that data differently based on your disclosure, that innovation exists today to help us and others around the world know what's going out the door to what stakeholder.
Sorry, Mandi, what exactly do you mean by just tag that data differently?
You can look at it and put on there the different types of stakeholders that that disclosure went out, and then to be able to discuss the length at which, whether it was qual or quant, and giving that descriptor so that you're not necessarily having different data go out because 72% of practitioners like us are scared of, "What am I putting out and do I trust?" And Emma's shaking her head. Did it go to different people? And so that innovation today helps us. And the third is the automation and AI that's coming into the market. I think that's going to help speed up the work, decrease the work, and allow us to do more forward-looking work to reach goals and ambitions.
Yeah. Thanks for that really clear answer. John, what do you make of that? What's the role of technology for you in ESG reporting?
The short answer is it's increasing and increasing fast, and that's a good thing. I would also say we're a lot closer, maybe definitionally, we're a lot closer to the beginning than the end on that trend, and when I think about technology enabling our reporting, I'm excited about what I see for the future, and I'm mindful of the challenges that we have today. Certainly, that does come back to your question and the discussion around consolidation of, fundamentally, what are the outputs from the system, so that will be helpful. And realistically, looking into the future, it will never be a single report. We will always have stakeholders with a range of interests, and that's okay. What we need to do is get the information of interest to each stakeholder group to them as clearly and efficiently as possible, and technology has a natural role to play there.
Yeah. Thank you. Rui, what are your thoughts on how organizational structure can feed into the technological piece? So how do you train up all of your staff to understand these different funnels through which the data will be going and understand how to interpret the data from your company and from your competitors and that kind of thing?
Sure. Listen, I think in the past, we had that same challenge with financial information. So I think there were two movements happening simultaneously, or if not simultaneously, at least in parallel tracks. One was, of course, I mean, what we spoke before about regulation, standards, what does it mean in EBITDA or net profit or balance sheet or rate rule? So we'll have to do that, of course, on the ESG dimensions. But also other thing was how systems evolve. It could be SAP, it could be any other system to the point that you're actually having a transactional system. You're recording invoices, payables, and then all of that builds up into a financial statement that follows the standards. And that technology, the more complicated you are as a company, then, of course, more important it is so that you're collecting all the data.
And you have those standards very clear throughout the entire organization. So people in financial teams in the U.S., in Europe, in Asia-Pacific, they'll understand exactly what they are loading into the systems and how to interpret the data. The same happens with ESG. And I think here the technology is actually, I think, because some of this data will not be perhaps as objective to start with as the financial information, that's where I think technology will play a role because also technology will help us to define that standard and make sure that everybody reads the same data point. And everybody collects it from the same single source of truth.
Effectively, I think that the more we consider the amount of data that we will require, because then I think when you start talking about supply chain and you say, "I want to also be carbon neutral, even with Scope 3 emissions, and I have to go all the way through the supply chain to the raw material," the amount of data that is reflected there is beyond really what we currently treat on a financial side because then we are moving into third parties, our entire supply chain data sources.
So I do believe that either, I mean, not only the standard again, but we will need that technology in place so that we can actually start to manage and cascade and very importantly, make sure that they are consistent and coherent because at the end of the day, we cannot have a different set of data from many of our suppliers and, of course, even more important within the company. So I think it's going to be a challenge. And from an organizational standpoint, when you ask me how we train people, we start very simply by asking them to really define the standards and make sure that you adhere to the standards. And then let's work on the technology to deploy them.
Just to say thank you for that, Rui. And there's a bit of an echo there. No, that's okay. And we're going to have a good chunk of time at the end just to talk about integrity and standards and who we can have confidence in. But just briefly on this kind of organizational structure theme, it'd be interesting to hear from you, Emma. I understand that you, in another life, worked with WWF and you joined Nestlé. And I wonder what you have asked of Nestlé, whether you've had to make any or request any organizational changes, any particular teaching or education measures.
Yeah. I often laugh because I think something I really was advocating a lot when I was at WWF a few years back was around transparency and accountability. And we're really in the heyday of transparency and accountability today, not only because businesses are really feeling the impacts of environmental and social challenges, but because that business case has woken up many businesses at this point in time. So yeah, it's really important. I think no one yet has quite cracked embedding ESG across the entire organization, but we're certainly all on that journey of trying to build it in. And there's a number of key things we've started to put in place too. It takes time to do this, especially when you're an organization of several thousand people.
In Nestlé's case, 270,000 people around the world, and every single person in the business has a role to play in some area, whether you're in HR and you're looking at how we onboard people and make sure they've got sustainability built in through to finance and reporting, right through to how we market and sell our products. It's really important, so some of the key things we're doing is actually just building this now into people's goals. So people are now rewarded and assessed on how they're delivering to their aspect or their relevant part of ESG, and of course, having that come down from the top is really helpful.
We're doing training, whether it's a combination of kind of mandatory training like we all have to do, we click through every year through to more in-depth, how do we bring this to life for people and make them feel passionate about it, and then thirdly, it's aligning it with kind of business-as-usual processes, so how do you just turn this into bread and butter of what we need to do in the business, so we're on that road. I wouldn't say it's complete yet. It's something we're all learning about as we go, but I know it's something actually that gets me out of bed every day, and I think it's the best days when I see different colleagues collaborating in different areas and talking about ESG as a thing without me even being involved, so it shows that it really is a motivator as well as a necessity.
Those are two really interesting and quite contrasting ideas in a way, the idea of collaboration and kind of ethics and virtue-driven work, and then the idea of a rewards-based structure where people would actually be rewarded financially for achieving some of these ESG goals. I wonder what you make of that tension, John, within your own company.
Sure. So we at Smiths recently integrated our aligned goals to our greenhouse gas net zero commitments to our executive compensation plans. This is something that I will say many companies are doing. It's the distinct trend, and it's a great thing to do. I don't see daylight between that or tension, I think is the word you suggested. I will say candidly and directly, I don't see tension. What I see is alignment, and I see the power of the systems that exist already and both the logic come to life in the delivery of those goals, fueled and supported by the aligned incentives. So they're never perfect. Whenever you're setting goals, there's always a learning period, and you never know, what should the specific target be for this year? What should the specific target be for next year?
However, it is by, I think, all accounts, directionally correct and better. And in our case, with respect to our executive compensation plans, it's specifically tied out to what we expect to be our science-based target commitments for Scope 1 and 2 emission reductions. And that just to me is logic. It's logic, it's transparency, and it gives our organization the kind of very clear North Star to move toward.
Just to check, John, when you say science-based target, is that one that would be approved by the Science Based Targets initiative?
Correct. We've committed to setting science-based targets through the SBTi. Where we are in that process is in the process of preparing our actual submission for the verification process. So yes, is the short answer to your question.
Yeah. And the SBTi has come up with, I think, a few times in this conversation, and it's an interesting reminder of all the other players in the room. Beyond the business opportunities, beyond the regulation, there are these incredibly powerful, really voluntary bodies, NGOs, and think tanks that try and set standards. So yeah, it'd be interesting to get your reflections on that, Mandi, on the whole kind of ecosystem of ESG data provision and where to look to for basically ensuring integrity, who companies should be looking to for help on that?
I think the companies that unlock the most business value, including Workiva itself, is that they've done really strong governance structures, the team said. They've got a committee of executives reporting into the board of directors. Then the second thing is that materiality assessment and stakeholder engagement.
Because if you start with, "How many voluntary frameworks should I apply to?" or, "How many investor ratings or rankings should I care about?" you're then just chasing a bunch of disclosure without a real coming back to, "How do your values translate to value?" and, "How do you tell that story?" And so the companies that do that step first really then identify what are the voluntary disclosures that matter most to my stakeholders and what are the ones that are going to drive business value forward, whether that's the investor, the customer, or potential recruitment and talent of your employees.
Interesting that it has to come from within the company first, basically from a kind of intelligence-specific place. It's still that industry, I think, despite those good intentions, is constantly under attack from investors, from activist investors, from the press, from regulators who say, "How do we know that there's no greenwashing in this data provision?" who confuse ideas of double and single materiality. Are you measuring the actual impact of the company on the environment? It still seems from the outside not so clear-cut as that. So I wonder, maybe, Rui, we could turn to you. Who do you think are the most kind of interesting and relevant accountability bodies right now that can look at companies from the outside and say, "You're doing ESG data right?
Honestly, I think it's hard to pinpoint single names, and I believe this may vary industry to industry. But when we think about the different indexes through which we communicate and participate to show how we are delivering on the ESG beyond, of course, what we write in our annual reports, it could be the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. It could be, of course, also committing to a Science Based Targets initiative. It's the Carbon Disclosure Project. I mean, it's a set of entities that may look at ESG differently from different perspectives. So if I put myself in investors' shoes, I will not look at just one single of them. I will look to a broader spectrum and understand, I mean, are they converging or are there any divergent opinions? And if there are divergent opinions, then try to understand why.
Because I think to the point of greenwashing, companies may fool one entity, but it's hard for companies to fool a full set of entities, so I think from a really investment perspective, until we get to the point where we have an equivalent IFRS rules and accounting standards to the ESG, I think it will be important that we rely on a broad spectrum of entities that will consider and assess the company's deliveries on the ESG and then use that to build up our own views about the company's performance.
What would your view on that be, Emma? How does one best avoid greenwashing in this space?
I can agree with more of what just been said. Every sector will have different standards, different bodies that they look at to see how they're doing. And I think we can all see there's so many ESG rankings out there. For any company, you can be top number one in one ranking and at the bottom in another ranking. So it can make it very difficult to decide, well, which method and which way of assessing a company is the right one. So it is really important that where there are, and that's where collaboration is really key.
And I know it's something we talk about a lot and we probably underdo it, but it's definitely something we're really trying to do more of because in this space, to avoid greenwashing, we really have to have a third party, a neutral third party that is approving, verifying, and checking data and being able to compare like with like. So there's lots out there. Some have already been mentioned, and we know there's many others. And I think we are starting to see that consolidation more and more. And that's something I think we would welcome because we do genuinely what we can't make sure we need to make sure we don't do is just not be able to see the wood for the trees. And actually, we get so caught up in data and reporting that we actually meet our targets, but we miss the goal.
The goal here has got to be making sure we genuinely get to net zero, we restore nature, and we make sure we have and we give back to society. We need to be clear and make sure that any data and reporting keeps us on track and helps inform decisions. If I had a pound every day for the amount of time now data gets mentioned internally, which is fantastic, but let's make sure it's the right data to drive information, to drive insight, and crucially, to drive action.
Yeah. What do you make of that, John? I can see you nodding.
Yeah, so as with many things, it's critically important. Couldn't agree more, Emma, with the fact that this is a case study of avoiding the risk of confusing the tool with the purpose, and we all need to keep focused. I know we all agree strongly, and we've lived it day to day, of the risk of being distracted, if you will, overly. Of course, everyone wants to make database decisions, engineers in the first instance, and it's really important when you're in the data to remember why you're in the data and bring it back to that, what are we trying to achieve here?
While those fundamentally, in a way, service providers, analysts are trying to help our stakeholders understand our performance, the real litmus test is for whether, when, and why we have accurately communicated our performance to our stakeholders, to our colleagues in the first instance, to our customers, and to our communities. The rest, it's critically important, and it's the how of achieving those ends in many cases, but it is not the purpose. The purpose is communicating accurately to our colleagues, our customers, and our communities.
Before we turn to questions, and that's something, another theme I've picked up on here is concentration, which you've mentioned a few times. And of course, last week, the credit rating agency snapped up one of the last independent providers of ESG data. And yeah, I wonder what all of you make of that and of the increasing trend towards big concentrated provision of ESG data in a similar kind of model to the credit rating agencies. Any of you, Rui or Mandi?
I can share my views there. I think that, again, I mean, over time, credit rating agencies, they build their reputation. And I will not go into the discussions about the financial crisis 20 years ago or less than 20 years ago, 10 years ago, sorry. But effectively, I mean, these entities, they build their reputation on the basis of the credibility, the strong professional accurate assessment, specific elements in terms of the balance sheet, performance ratios, and therefore the creditworthiness of the companies. And then I think there is value with scale because the more you look into different companies, different industries, the better you can compare, the better you can assess whether if there is any greenwashing or not, if everything is according to whatever standards may be set.
I definitely believe that that scale effect, that scale advantage that integrating and having these large entities ultimately being a certification entity or providing information to the public and to the investor communities, I think it would be a trend that I would favor. I'm still not seeing it happening.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much for that. Let's just turn to some fairly quick-fire questions. And I might kind of suggest who can answer, but hopefully, this will work. If you feel particularly well qualified to answer, please try and jump in if it doesn't get too chaotic. So we just had first quite a kind of fun question from Maggie Delmas. What type of training do you think the C-suite needs to better address ESG issues? Mandi, what do you make of that?
I think, as it is an evolving practice, most companies around the globe have been trying to work at this for three years or less. It's really being intentional about what we keep saying is start with your business value drivers and then look at where does that executive team or board have experience. So I'd actually take it a step up and look at your board of directors, and in your D&O survey, Workiva did this. We added a question around each of our material issues and what their experience was and build a matrix out to see how the board looked, and then looking at that with your executive team. Because if you do that apart from the material issues, you're then just asking or doing training based on what you think is relevant, and there may already be some lived experiences there to help guide you.
Yeah. Really interesting response.
Just to build on that, I guess the first thing is we should have someone who owns ESG sitting on the board. So that's really important that this needs to be a person in the room who's representing, who can talk to this agenda, and that's absolutely key. A couple of things we've been doing. There's lots of things. And I guess as a food business, we're one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change as well as being a part of a sector that contributes a third of all human-produced emissions. So it's really important that we address it. And I think something that's been really valuable for us is taking our C-suite and our execs out to the farm to really understand what's happening where the very beginning of their business starts.
If farming and nature collapses, we simply don't have ingredients to source to make into food products to serve the customers and consumers that we serve. So being able to bring that to life is really valuable.
Thanks for that, Emma. I have a classic question that might make all of you sigh. It's from Amandeep Singh. Why don't all initiatives just collaborate like EFRAG, ISSB, SEC to have a common reporting framework? Wouldn't that solve data-related issues? John, what do you make of that?
So yes, it will help. And certainly, that's the direction of travel. I think everyone recognizes that that's the natural helpful direction to move. So a lot of support for that. I think the devil's in the details. That's much easier said than done. As we discussed earlier, there are, by all accounts, many different perspectives on the broad topic of ESG. And I think that some of the diversity in the ratings approaches reflects those differences in our fundamentally different stakeholder group interests, all of which we need to respect and serve. So I do think there's a huge opportunity for consolidation. I guess I'm realistic about how far that will go ultimately. And it's a constructive dialogue between the data and the purpose, right? So it's a journey, as they say. Yeah.
Another one, are green bonds having a positive impact on corporate performance when it comes to ESG? Mandi, was this something that you've been looking at?
I think as you look at the green bond market, there's something I want to chime in here as well. I think it's a piece where John said it well, it's a journey, and so as we look at it, we have to take a step back and say, where are we in this iteration, and where do we need to go in the future to continue to accelerate? I think what we'll see out of the market is not just only green bonds, but you've seen more come in around sustainability bonds. We'll get a tightening on impact measurement and a tightening on the transparency of those items. I'm sure others might have some comments there as well.
Yeah. Let's just jump straight to another question. I mean, there's so much to say on that. But yeah, I mean, one question was, how early in the process would you integrate audit into ESG? Integrate internal audit into ESG at your organization? Right. So at what stage do the auditors come in? Rui, what do you make of that?
Listen, as I mentioned before, if we are reporting quarterly and I'm asking the auditors to come in and look at my financial data, they will do the same. They should do the same for the ESG. Not necessarily the same auditors, but why not? But if I have a system of continuously monitoring my financials, this is key, then why shouldn't I have the same for ESG? If I have an internal audit risk matrix that identifies what sort of audits I should be placing throughout the year, then why shouldn't I? I guess my point again goes back to my earlier comment. To me, ESG is not a part of what we do. It's effectively what we are doing. Either we believe that we have a strategy that follows an ESG agenda or we don't.
If we do believe that we have that, then measuring it is just part of measuring the performance of the company and how we are executing the strategy.
Okay. And two very quick questions for you. One is on carbon tagging. Someone was particularly interested in that, the role of that in the food supply chain. And also, how do you engage SMEs and other kind of actors in your supply chain? How do we engage the millions of SMEs on public and private sector supply chains to report ESG data simply and easily without putting extra burdens on them?
Really, really great question, and for any food business, between 70% and 90% of our impact is in our Scope 3 emissions, so it's absolutely crucial that we work with our supply chain, and in a company like Nestlé, that can be some major huge companies that provide ingredients or products or materials to us, and then it can be the millions of smallholder farmers that we might source cocoa or coffee from around the world, so we need to have different approaches, but all of them are part of our supply chain and part of our Scope 3 , and we'll engage with a whole bunch of different activities and engagement strategies to bring them in, and that's the journey that we're really on. In terms of carbon tagging and other innovations, these are absolutely things we're looking at.
The mainstay of Nestlé's net zero commitment is around driving a shift towards regenerative agriculture practices. Because without that, we won't have a resilient, accessible, inclusive food system, nor will we get anywhere close to meeting our net zero goals. So we're actively exploring all different technologies and innovations out there. And that's definitely something we'll look at more.
I mean, what is carbon tagging, if anyone knows?
It can be used in many different contexts, but if the person who asked the question wants to give a bit more specificity to what they're talking about, I'll happily think about it.
Unfortunately, we can't beam them in, but we can sort of all imagine the kind of carbon number being tagged on the back of a bovine or something.
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Well, we're drawing nearly to a close, but I think we do have time for one or two more. Yeah. I mean, this is a question about governance, really. John, you might be interested. What function do you think sustainability and ESG will best be categorized under in the long term? Will it just always be the role of Chief Sustainability Officer, which I believe is your title? Will that become ubiquitous?
That would be my guess. And I think that has both practical and operational reasons as well as principled reasons. I wouldn't say there's any magic to job titles, of course. However, I would agree with both the practical reality and benefits of consolidated responsibilities. So when we have an area as important to the organization as ESG and as broad-reaching as ESG is, it's helpful to have consolidated responsibilities to make sure that we are delivering on our commitments and looking forward to help our customers deliver on theirs. And those two things together for us brings together the value of, it was mentioned earlier, board reporting. I think consolidated responsibility of the board, such as our Science, Sustainability, and Excellence Committee. That's how we've done it at Smiths.
I've seen in real time the value of that, call it single point of contact, of which I'm in a sense an extension. Yeah.
Yeah. Interesting. And just to close up as a final question, there was something we never quite had the time to come to, which you all mentioned as well, which was the opportunities of ESG disclosure, what kind of business opportunities this creates. Mandi, it'd be great to hear your thoughts on that, how you align the two.
I think as we've discovered around the globe in any market is that if they have their aligned strategy to business value drivers and are reporting against it transparently, seven out of 10 businesses are unlocking opportunities all the way from investor growth to customer growth to employee retention to risk mitigation or cost reduction. And so I think it's that big piece of let's assemble a team, let's get our strategy right where values drive values, and let's transparently tell it to the world in a way that it can be trusted.
Okay. Well, thank you all of you for joining us today. I think we've covered quite a lot. We've done some of the nitty-gritty, probably a very tiny proportion of what you guys have to knuckle down and think about. We've looked at the regulatory context coming down the line. We looked at the role of technology. We've even talked about green bonds, organizational structure, governance, and integrity, which is, of course, a major part of this conversation. Thanks very much, all of you.