Making progress in sustainability efforts

The conversation on sustainability can no longer be avoided for businesses.

- By CATHERINE TALAVERA

Based on results of PwC's latest Global Investor Survey, 50 percent of investors say that it is very or extremely important that companies change the way they create, deliver and capture value in response to climate change. On top of this, 71 percent of investors said companies should incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) or sustainability into their corporate strategy.

Around three-quarters of survey respondents also said they would moderately or significantly increase their investment in companies that are taking certain climate-related actions. These include working with suppliers and communities to build sustainable value chains (80 percent), innovating products and services that enable customers to adapt to or mitigate the impacts of climate change (77 percent), building resilience against physical climate risk (73 percent), and increasing the use of renewable energy (72 percent).

These sentiments show the importance of sustainability initiatives in attracting investors.

Sustainability reporting With the emphasis put on ESG efforts in recent years, a lot of businesses in the country—especially the larger ones—have already made their respective efforts in this area, while also acknowledging the need to discuss more on this through issuing sustainability reports.

As early as 2019, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued guidelines for publicly listed companies on sustainable reporting. The commission said the guidelines intend to help PLCs assess and manage non-financial performance across economic, environmental and social aspects of their organization as well as measure their contributions to sustainability targets such as the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.