Environment Social Governance and Good Growth companies Abstract
- Pooja Khosla and Edmund Bradford discuss the concept of good growth and how it fits into the concept of being a good company.
- Pooja says that ESG is designed to provide standardized metrics to measure how an organization impacts all the creatures that live on the planet, including human beings.
- Edmund says that investors are stepping up to utilize this knowledge to support Good Growth which is beyond and better than regular growth.
Transcript How does ESG fits into Good Growth
[00:00:08 –> 00:01:11] Edmund: Hello, everyone. My name is Edmund Bradford. I’m director of the Good Growth Academy. And in these little videos, we’re looking at the subject of, ESG which is a major term used commonly when talking about sustainability, especially by the investor community. Today we’re going to be thinking about how ESG fits into the concept of good growth. And to help you with that, I’m very pleased to welcome Dr Pooja Khosla, who’s vice president of client development at Entelligent. Good morning Pooja thank you for joining us. So we talked to the last video about what ESG is, how it’s different from sustainability, and why it’s important. What is it designed to do and how does it fit into the kind of concept of being a good company?
[00:01:13 –> 00:02:11] Pooja: So Ed I would say that ESG is designed to measure to standardize for metrics of part of which is just sustainability. Pretty much why do we need accounting? Accounting, make sure that the financial goal of an organization was achieved. ESG is the accounting of environmental, social, and governance causes of the organization. When we talk about growth, growth alone is an incomplete concept. Growth needs a partner, a partner where the growth is beyond the financial fact sheet, where the organization can show growth from inside out in their systems, in their governance, in their contribution to the society, to the planet.
[00:02:12 –> 00:02:25] Edmund: It’s not just about this is a thing that I found interesting when delving into ESG, that it actually is not just about looking at an organization’s impact on the planet. Is it’s far more than that?
[00:02:26 –> 00:03:59] Pooja: It is far more than that. It is also looking at organization impact on the creatures that live on the planet, including as human beings. So it’s beyond environmental, how an organization takes its employees, how the organization takes its consumers, how it basically sets and grows the trust of the community that supports that organization. So it is much beyond just contributing to the planet. It is contributing to the people on the planet as well as to the other creatures. Like, look at the impact on biodiversity. So it contributes to everyone, every creature that lives on the planet. So in order to make sure that we achieve good growth, it is time when we think beyond financial returns. I know financial returns are the fiduciary responsibility of everybody, but we have to consider environmental returns, social returns, governance returns pretty much on par with financial returns. If we have to focus on good growth and good growth is the best way to grow, it is to grow with trust. It is to grow with confidence. It is to grow with the value creations of all stakeholders rather than just value extraction.
[00:04:00 –> 00:04:39] Edmund: From your work with the investor community. Have they suddenly all become angels now, the investor community? As I said, well, we’re doing this because actually, we all want to be good investors, et cetera. Or is there just some really hard business cases out there and evidence and research that suggests that having a company with really good leadership, I’m thinking about companies like, Unilever than really trying to become a good company? Is there more and more evidence now that investors are seeing that most of the companies or actually give them better returns?
[00:04:39 –> 00:05:57] Pooja: So and I would not say angels and demons over here, rather, I would be scientific being a scientist, it’s about information. Like even when we talk about efficient market hypothesis, perfect information is very important. Before today, before the ESG, there were a lot of blind spots. But today, because of a lot of forms, a lot of data and research companies jumping in to measure the impact of the organization on the environment, social, and governance with respect to recent technology, Artificial Intelligence, and big data. With respect to regulatory push on reporting, more companies are reporting than ever before. There is a lot of information now with this rich information. Investors have more knowledge, more guidance than they used to have before. And investors are stepping up to utilize this knowledge, this guidance to support good growth that is beyond growth and better than growth.
[00:05:57 –> 00:06:36] Edmund: Thank you, Pooja. That’s excellent. That’s very helpful. I feel like we should talk about this all day, but I think that’s really been helpful so far. In the next video, we’re going to be talking about one specific area of business with which we were involved, which is marketing, and why ESG is particularly impactful for the marketing profession. But until then, thank you very much. Put of your time. Very helpful as ever. And I look forward to our next video.
Vice President at Entelligent
Vice President Client Development at Entelligent. Dr. Khosla is an economist, econometrician, and mathematician who has deep knowledge to build investing solutions. She has extensive experience in predictive modeling, microfinance and designing impact investment tools. Khosla has been working on impact solutions since 2003 both nationally and internationally. Khosla has been working with Entelligent since 2016 developing Entelligent’s data science team, Smart Climate technology, Smart Climate Indices as well as additional climate risk related products. She is one of the inventors of patented Smart Climate technology. Khosla has several publications in economics, impact investing and microfinance. Besides designing sustainability products Khosla has an active teaching career training student in economic applications and data science. Khosla holds a Ph.D in economics, and master degrees/diploma in three disciplines including economics, statistics and public relations.
Latest posts by Pooja Khosla (see all)
- ESG and me. It’s ok to be different. - September 23, 2022
- Why insurance holds the key to ESG adoption - March 22, 2022
- EV: the crucial role of Finance in driving Electric Vehicles growth - January 18, 2022