Introduction
Welcome to the Environmental, Social & Governance Evaluation Questionnaire (ESGEQ). To assist board members and business owners navigate the increasing complexities associated with environmental sustainability, social responsibility and corporate governance, we have developed a series of online self-assessments to help answer important questions around the organisation’s performance in managing these factors.
These online self-assessments provide a quick and easy evaluation to help you determine whether your ESG system is operating effectively or whether there is room for improvement. Each of these questionnaires has been informed by our expertise and experience with corporate governance practices across a wide range of industries.
After completing each questionnaire, we will evaluate your responses and provide you with a performance scorecard with recommended actions to help improve your ESG practices. There are 24 questionnaires in total, covering a broad range of environmental, social and governance topics.
To make the experience easier, we have integrated the questions with tools, guidance and advisory capability that will help business owners and boards alike improve their ESG practices.
Why should you care about environmental sustainability, social responsibility and corporate governance practices?
Investment in organisations that integrate environmental social and governance factors will continue to gather pace in the short to medium term. As passive investing in non-traditional sectors increases so too do the number of ESG indices, which now number over 1000. More and more, investors are shying away from carbon intensive industries in favour of industries that actively manage their ESG strategies. Once the appetite for investment performance makes way for those organisations exercising responsible business practices, there will be a seismic shift in responsible investing and those organisations with a sound track record of responsible environmental sustainability, social responsibility and corporate governance practices stand to reap the financial benefits.
The focus of the ESG evaluation questionnaires is on those factors that could have a material negative impact on the organisation’s brand value or reputation in the market. The impact of any internal or operational risks have been specifically excluded from these assessments as these are covered in mainstream GRCReady Governance Evaluation Questionnaires.
How to maximise value from the ESG evaluation questionnaires
There are a number of ways to get the most out of the ESGEQ process. If you believe you have an informed perspective of the ESG governance system in your organisation, you can complete your own assessment of how your organisation’s ESG system is performing. Alternatively, you can undertake the assessment with colleagues who have greater insight on the ESG subject. There are a number of free online live polling tools that you can use to enable others in the organisation to provide their informed view on the questions which may provide a broader organisational perspective. Finally, you can undertake a facilitated assessment with your professional services provider. Using their anonymous voting software in a workshop setting, you and your team will get a more complete picture of your organisation’s approach to ESG.
Identify where your board needs support
Completion of each of the ESGEQs will help you to identify areas where you could do with a little support as well as provide practical tips to help improve your ESG practices. (Please note: Any personal information you provide by registering to complete these questionnaires will be protected by us in accordance with our privacy policy.)
About the Questionnaire
You will be asked to provide responses to 10 questions, each of which uses a five-point Likert scale ranging from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree' to allow you to express how much you agree or disagree with a particular statement. The questionnaire should take no longer than 5 minutes to complete. Each question has been aligned with COSO (The Committee of Sponsoring Organisations of the Treadway Commission) which is a joint initiative of private sector organisations and is dedicated to providing thought leadership through the development of governance frameworks.
You will need to first register in order to complete the questionnaire and view the scorecard showing the results of your assessment. The results will be accompanied by some general comments on potential actions that can be taken to improve ESG practices in your business. The potential actions listed on the scorecard should not be construed as providing legal or commercial advice. They are area(s) that have been identified by the ESGEQ, where you may wish to seek professional advice or purchase documents, tools and resources to support further work in these area(s).
With your permission, we will share the results of your ESG questionnaires with your professional advisor to enable them to have an informed conversation to help improve your ESG practices.
I consent to GRCReady sharing the results of my environmental social governance evaluations questionnaires with my professional adviser.