ESG Reports and Their Impact on Oil and Gas Sustainability

In this era of corporate social responsibility, many company’s leadership teams are looking for ways to please regulators by measuring their company’s impact on the environment and climate change.

Ensuring compliance with new regulations for carbon emissions while not hampering financial performance or impeding shareholders’ rights can be arduous, but that’s where ESG Reporting excels.

Rosa Rivero, principal at Responsibility Matters, has led the development of ESG Sustainability Reporting for corporations across a variety of industries. She spoke with The Global Energy to discuss how, with her guidance, ESG Reporting is making a sustainable difference.

Trends Edition with Rosa Rivero, Principal, Responsibility Matters Inc.

What is ESG Reporting?

Rosa: It’s been called many different things. CSR Sustainability Reporting, Corporate Responsibility Reporting, and lately, ESG reporting. It stands for environmental, social and governance and in some ways, it’s the same as it always has been. We see the same kinds of topics: emissions, water, safety, and ethics. But in some ways, ESG data is very different because the ESG criteria focus on topics that could have a financial impact on the companies.

Who has to provide ESG Reports?

Rosa: With time, there has been a ripple effect. It’s moved from very large to now medium and even small companies using our reports. We have clients that have as few as 50 employees that choose to make disclosures on their ESG impacts.

On the private side, their shareholders are asking for these kinds of metrics so they're starting to report as well.

Moving across industries, our clients used to only be companies that were perceived to have large environmental impacts but now other companies in banking or food have been feeling the pressure too — either from their shareholders or because they're part of somebody's value or supply chain.

Who is the Intended Audience for ESG reports?

Rosa: In the past, they were written for stakeholders as assurance that the company was being a good corporate citizen. Now, reports are being written for providers of capital. This includes current shareholders, potential investors, and insurance providers.

Because they're looking for all of those non-financial impacts or topics that could have financial impacts, the list of report recipients is ever-expanding. Now we’re seeing those in cyber security, diversity and inclusion, and tax strategy increase their ESG priorities.

How are ESG Reports Being Used Today?

Rosa: Now, the information is being used to make responsible investment decisions. Investors can take the ESG performance information and compare companies to other companies in the same sector. How are they performing? How are they managing risks? Because that's what these reports are being used for, the stakes are really high.

What Should Be the Main Focus of Someone Reading an ESG Report?

Rosa: Because investors are the main audience of this report, they're really focused on the financial impacts of climate.
They want to know that companies are prepared for forest fires, floods, and extreme weather events and they also want to know that the companies are prepared for what the transition to a low carbon economy means. It might mean changes in product demand, opportunities, and carbon taxes.

Investors want to know that the companies are resilient and prepared for all these climate-related changes.

How do ESG Reports affect the long-term?

Rosa: These reports are used to focus on what happened last year only. Because of the investor focus, now reports are a little more strategic. They’ve moved beyond the kind of being a laundry list of activities to think about topics that are more strategic, the activities that are more strategic. Companies are now being asked to think about 2030 and even 2050, and ESG disclosures are a great way to help them put plans in place.

Learn More About Innovations in the Canadian Energy Sector

Thank you to Rosa Rivero for giving us insight into why ESG Reporting is so important for companies big or small. If you’re interested in learning more about innovations in the energy sector and their impact on Oil and Gas, as well as many other industries, register for the next Global Energy Show.