Need for Simple, Clearly Defined and Standardised Sustainability Standards: Lynn Forester De Rothschild, Chief Executive Officer, E.L. Rothschild and Founder & Co-Chair, Council for Inclusive Capitalism, UK

“We now live in a world that is asking us to measure how companies take care of the environment, how they take care of their social responsibility, how they govern themselves,” Ms Lynn Forester De Rothschild, Chief Executive Officer, E.L. Rothschild and Founder & Co-Chair, Council for Inclusive Capitalism, UK, said at the plenary session on Sustainability & Development Imperatives and the Role of Standards held at the B20 Summit 2023 on August 26th at New Delhi, which was organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the B20 India Secretariat.

Ms Rothschild, who was the session moderator, highlighted the need to transition to a world where business is responsible not only for profit but also for its treatment of people. She said that standardisation matters and that this is best encapsulated in the words of Mr Peter Drucker who has said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

She also highlighted that there exist over 600+ ESG approaches, which has created an alphabet soup and that there is a requirement to find a way to get away from the fractured data created out of this complexity of multiple standards. Ms Rothschild added that standardisation is required in order to achieve the stated objective, which is measuring the way companies are treating their people and their planet.

Mr Bernard Looney, Chief Executive Officer, BP, UK, said “We fully support the concept of transparency and agree that the ability to understand the environmental, the social and the governance risks and opportunities of any company are important factors in making a decision around an investment opportunity.” He also emphasised that standards should be simple as otherwise there is a risk of these not being useful and also highlighted that multiple approaches will not help people understand about the actual performance of a company on ESG.

Mr Sanjiv Puri, CII President Designate, and CMD, ITC Ltd, stated “We need to have a very simple framework that is very clearly defined and uniformly adopted across all organizations and geographies. The quality of reporting is different for different organizations based on their context, maturity and evolution.” He also emphasised that standards should consider the perspective of the Global South as it has communities that have a multitude of problems and is a hub of MSMEs. He focused on the need to mainstream ESG and increased adaptation. “It would not be possible to harmonise everything but we need to start the journey and see how we can accelerate progress,” Mr Puri added.

Mr Punit Renjen, Deputy Chairperson-Supervisory Board, SAP SE, USA mentioned “Our ESG journey started because of a business imperative — to hire and retain the very best individuals. These are GenZ and millennials who are unanimously voicing the importance of climate and questioning what businesses are doing for the communities that we live in.” He also stated that progress has been made in the last couple of years, particularly with the ISSB, as they have come up with two consistent standards.

Mr Arunava Majumdar, Chester Naramore Dean, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability; Jay Precourt Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Energy Science and Engineering and Senior Fellow, Precourt Institute for Energy &, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, USA, stated “We have to look at adaptation for decarbonization as there are going to be issues like food security, water security, heat waves, humidity waves and I sincerely hope for innovations and standards to combat these.” He also emphasised that over the next 20 years, it is important to figure out not just standards but other things that foster innovation — innovation in technology and innovation in finance.

26 August 2023

New Delhi