There are a plethora of words and terms that are now utilised to discuss corporate sustainability. ESG denotes Environmental, Social and Governance issues affecting corporations. CSR speaks of Corporate Social Responsibility but sustainability as a general term refers to a company’s sustainability in terms of its relationship to the planet and to its consumers and shareholders.
It is vital that sustainability remains high on every corporate’s agenda as the pandemic continues and we hopefully exit back into more normality over the course of 2021. Corporate treasury teams play a key role in their companies’ ESG integration. Finance and treasury are responsible for overseeing the issuance of green debt, structuring more innovative bonds aligned to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals or putting the finance in place for companies to align with the Paris goals and meet carbon reduction pledges.
As with our work around inclusion, diversity and equity within the corporate space, data is invaluable in charting the progress of global treasury teams and highlighting those critical areas for improvement. In order to keep track of industry standards and progress, the Treasury Today Group is now running the second year of our Global Sustainability Study. Your thoughts and experiences are vital to our research and as with our other areas of research, the data that these studies produce allows us to showcase examples of best practice and to respond to areas of confusion or lack of information. We can only provide the tools to help treasury teams become more sustainable once we know where exactly the strengths and gaps in knowledge and implementation are occurring.
The modern and intellectually curious treasurer must stay abreast of the latest in ESG. We are now open for submissions in the second year of our Global Sustainability Study which provides a clear data set mapping the industry’s progress in sustainability. We would like to ask for your help in responding to our 2021 Study. This can then shape our coverage and content forms over the course of this year. In 2019 and 2020 we ran a series of workshops, roundtables and content pieces designed to improve awareness and adoption and we want to ensure that we remain relevant and as useful as possible by harnessing the data that the study will create to great effect.
ESG is increasingly a board level issue for many companies and now touches nearly every part of the treasury function. The hundreds of responses to our 2020 Global Sustainability Study revealed how treasury teams are integrating ESG. One year on, we invite your response to our next study, designed to measure corporate progress and ESG priorities through the last, tumultuous year.
We would like to thank you in advance for participating in the study. Findings will be available in the summer. We also would like to welcome any issues or suggestions that you may have to shape our coverage of sustainability this year. If you have anything to share please do reach out to editorial@treasurytoday.com
