With Enviro, Social, & Governance Week in full swing, we’re sharing some ESG insights from some of our recent Faces of EHS guests. Here are their answers to the question, “What will be the impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles on the EHS industry?”
Amanda Rawls
Amanda Rawls is EHS Regional Director, KPA.
Awareness.
For example, no one thinks about how much water bottles cost a business: the thousands supplied to customers at a car dealership, the millions of dollars spent on single-use water bottles, alternative uses for space that pallets of water take up in a building, the labor cost required to pay someone to move and carry and stock those heavy pallets of water.
An ESG report would list water bottles as an item with an associated direct and indirect cost, and employees would be very surprised to learn what that tiny amenity is costing their business.
And that’s just a small example of what can be changed with more awareness of ESG principles and practice.
Read the full interview here.
Malcolm Staves
Malcolm Staves is Global VP of Health & Safety, L’Oreal.
It’s already here. It already is having an impact on many organizations, primarily in the environmental areas. The “S” for “social” includes human rights and health and safety. Health and safety (including mental health and other illnesses) are becoming more and more important in the corporate reporting world, which will result in more scrutiny by stakeholders including governments, investors, and rating agencies.
Consequently, there will be more focus on people sustainability within this agenda, and health and safety professionals need to know whether and how they will be impacted and start preparing. At L’Oréal we have already started this, and the work involved is not negligible.
Read the full interview here.
Juan Gramajo
Juan Gramajo is Senior EH&S Specialist at Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.
The impact of ESG principles on the EHS industry is tremendous! In a time when politics are very polarizing, we need to pay attention to the local and federal landscape. Every four years, for example, we face the election cycle that ultimately will dictate environmental policy and safety policy. A candidate’s platform will determine the direction our profession will go, and the impact of that policy will have a direct influence on the health of our planet. I want to believe that once “the environment” is no longer “trendy,” we will still have candidates that will platform on, and advocate for, our planet and its people.
Read the full interview here.
Monique Parker
Monique Parker is SVP of HSE, Piedmont Lithium and SVP, ASSP.
The impact ESG will have on the EHS industry is going to be very much company dependent. There is a direct correlation between the E’s of ESG and EHS. The S of ESG is broader than the S of EHS, but there is a connection that will require further collaboration with a broader group within the organization. Governance is something that all areas within any organization must have in place and ensure there is proper accountability.
It is my belief that the EHS industry is best suited to lead these efforts not only because EHS professionals are normally responsible for the majority of the information, programs, and metrics, but also because of the role the industry plays in having to be engaged in almost every aspect of what an organization does.
Read the full interview here.
Rachel Eckert
Rachel Eckert is an EHS supervisor at Chobani.
I believe that ESG could be a force of change within the EHS industry so long as the principles are functioning cohesively. For businesses which have the potential to have significant impacts on their employees, and the areas around their brick-and-mortar locations, ESG has the potential to structure a crucial framework to ensure sustainability and compliance that goes beyond the minimum requirements of EHS programs and, in turn, drive policies and deliverables that can have a positive impact on the surrounding areas. If ESG and EHS work in tandem, there is a huge amount of potential to structure programs and policies using human behavior models, and the output would be programs that engage and sustain.
Read the full interview here.