2024 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for environmental, social and governance programs. This year, more ESG requirements and regulations are coming into effect that will. Whether companies are driven by adhering to regulations, stakeholder pressures or wanting to gain greater transparency into their suppliers’ sourcing, many companies are still incorporating sustainability goals and ESG reporting into their core business purpose.
We established a dedicated sustainability team to drive this function of our business and consulted with key stakeholders and leaders within the company to set priorities and expectations for the program. We then established social impact as a core value of the organization so that our workforce understood that this is a key aspect of our culture.Building buy-in and engagement across the organization is a critical aspect of a strong ESG program.
We established a Sustainability Executive Committee of key senior leaders within the company and also developed an initiative to tie a portion of executive pay to meet each phase of our ESG plan.
One of the initial steps we took on our ESG journey was to sign a letter of commitment to STBi and begin collecting data to set targets and create a carbon reduction strategy. To work toward this, we collaborated closely with our sustainability and product management teams to build a tool to help us visualize emissions hotspots across our business and, therefore, identify and address potential issues early on.