We’ve asked some of our speakers from across the world about sustainability reporting and its challenges, their best sustainability hacks and more. Read on for our fourth interview with Ita Demyttenaere.
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How can we collectively advance sustainability reporting and sustainable finance?
“By doing it. Nevermind that the data is imperfect, it will be for a long time so we cannot wait until everything is sorted out. Once we start reporting, we learn much faster. We can learn from each other, hold each other accountable and be vulnerable.”
In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge in sustainability reporting and sustainable finance at the moment?
“ESG is about many different topics, each with its own subthemes. Take the E, Environment, it contains climate change, biodiversity, land use, emissions, effluents and waste. All these subthemes have different variables to measure their success and almost none of them are standardized and reporting by companies is inconsistent at best.
Even for the most standardized and advanced datapoint in ESG, carbon intensity, only around 70% of large cap companies report! This makes it incredibly hard to have a holistic view across a broad universe of companies on their ESG performance.”
Are there any best practices, industry collaborations, or measurements you would like to highlight?
“In the Netherlands, Dutch pension funds have signed the IMVB Covenant as an initiative. Collectively, they have agreed to embed the OECD guidelines into their investment processes. This includes identifying and assessing risks of adverse impacts, providing remediation and monitoring and reporting responsibilities. At Sustainalytics, we have a unique position to help clients, but also to observe how this plays out into practice; and we have really seen that Dutch pension funds have raised the bar on what it means to be a responsible investor. This means increased due diligence, stricter exclusion criteria and more engagement and I believe this is exactly what the intention was.”
What do you consider as the future of sustainable finance and/or reporting?
“Globally accepted variables on important topics that are standardized and widely reported. This will help investors, and ESG Research providers, to come up with their own view on sustainability that is based on the same source data.”
What's your best sustainability hack?
“Cycling as much as possible. It keeps you fit and is environmentally friendly. And in a small city like Amsterdam or Oslo it is often the fastest mode of transportation as well.”
“By doing it. Nevermind that the data is imperfect, it will be for a long time so we cannot wait until everything is sorted out. Once we start reporting, we learn much faster. We can learn from each other, hold each other accountable and be vulnerable.”
In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge in sustainability reporting and sustainable finance at the moment?
“ESG is about many different topics, each with its own subthemes. Take the E, Environment, it contains climate change, biodiversity, land use, emissions, effluents and waste. All these subthemes have different variables to measure their success and almost none of them are standardized and reporting by companies is inconsistent at best.
Even for the most standardized and advanced datapoint in ESG, carbon intensity, only around 70% of large cap companies report! This makes it incredibly hard to have a holistic view across a broad universe of companies on their ESG performance.”
Are there any best practices, industry collaborations, or measurements you would like to highlight?
“In the Netherlands, Dutch pension funds have signed the IMVB Covenant as an initiative. Collectively, they have agreed to embed the OECD guidelines into their investment processes. This includes identifying and assessing risks of adverse impacts, providing remediation and monitoring and reporting responsibilities. At Sustainalytics, we have a unique position to help clients, but also to observe how this plays out into practice; and we have really seen that Dutch pension funds have raised the bar on what it means to be a responsible investor. This means increased due diligence, stricter exclusion criteria and more engagement and I believe this is exactly what the intention was.”
What do you consider as the future of sustainable finance and/or reporting?
“Globally accepted variables on important topics that are standardized and widely reported. This will help investors, and ESG Research providers, to come up with their own view on sustainability that is based on the same source data.”
What's your best sustainability hack?
“Cycling as much as possible. It keeps you fit and is environmentally friendly. And in a small city like Amsterdam or Oslo it is often the fastest mode of transportation as well.”