Keep up with the evolving sustainability reporting landscape
Capitalize on the potential value of sustainability-related internal controls
As global concern over climate change and societal equity rises, investors, customers, and other stakeholders are increasingly demanding more transparency in sustainability business practices. This demand, coupled with accelerating sustainability regulations, including a the 2023 interpretive report on internal control over sustainability reporting (ICSR), makes it important to implement internal controls that can support your company’s focus on sustainability performance. A proactive approach can help your company keep pace with the transforming sustainability reporting landscape and can create value for your company. By integrating scalable sustainability-related internal controls into your existing framework, you may be able to improve your organization’s responsiveness to stakeholder interests and discover benefits to potentially evolve your business.
Implementing an internal control environment around sustainability will likely be a journey, not a sprint. This journey typically begins with governance. This can help define your vision, establish authority, and build stakeholder support across the organization.
Consider forming a cross-functional working group as your governance structure in order to obtain representation from various functions across the organization. Such a structure is likely to promote diversity in perspectives and alignment of sustainable business objectives across the company. This governing body should focus on establishing an implementation roadmap together with executive management and communicating progress timely with the board of directors.
It's important to communicate your shared vision early and often so that the lines of responsibilities are clear. The roadmap should account for people, process, and technology. We’ll step through some considerations in each area.
