ESG Webinar: New ESG Regulations

01/02/2023

A raft of new ESG regulations are due to come into force globally. The H/Advisors team and their special guest speakers discuss what this means and what companies need to do to prepare.

Hosted by Ryan Kisiel, Head of Sustain in London and Sebastien Ricard, Directeur Associé in Paris, with an opening statement from Sebastien covering the upcoming directives of the CSRD.

  • CSRD aims to tackle greenwashing. It replaces the NFRD and makes changes on 3 major directives. Wide scope of
    application with more than 50,000 equities concerned. A sustainability report becomes mandatory. Tackles double
    materiality. Delegated acts update every 3 years.
  • CSRD creates a common canvas of information and a common canvas to all companies whether they are European
    or international to communicate their sustainability information. It is going to become harder and harder to
    emerge in terms of communication and achievement when it comes to ESG for companies.
  • It will be more and more difficult for companies to emerge among competitors, and it becomes more and more essential for companies within the EU to to have an efficient ESG and sustainability strategy that if effectively implemented and involves its stakeholder and achieve results.

Session 1: Sylvain Guyoton

Key findings

  • The voluntary aspect is changing. The regulatory bar is rising making reporting mandatory for more and more companies. There is a huge regulatory wave of sustainability practices which were for a long time voluntary – some people are calling it a tsunami of regulation.
  • So why are ESG practices not producing the positive effect? On one hand most social impact is happening upstream in global supply chains. On the other hand, most sustainability practices are currently undertaken by large corporations which represent the tip of the iceberg and therefore the submerged part of the iceberg which consists of SMEs is still pretty inactive on the subject. This is where you find the worst environmental pollution, human rights problems etc.
  • Some legislators have started to say enough is enough. A wave of legislation has started to evolve. European Green Deal – ESG regulations are now catching up and making the fundamentals mandatory – but this should not be an excuse to do the bare minimum. Business should continue climbing the curve to make a positive impact.

Conclusion

This wave of new regulations, the return of the visible hand is here to stay, you should prepare for it to stay. More regulatory complexities to come before global convergence. Complexities will be accentuated by 3 geopolitical blocks (US, EU, China) with each block attacking it from a different angle. It is less costly to anticipate compliance and be proactive than reactive. They are an opportunity to climb the ESG maturity curve and create value.

Session 2: Emily Pierce

Key findings

  • When we got to 2020s, regulators realised that the information that investors were getting was not sufficient and issuers faced a challenge of a fragmented request from investors so there is a mutual benefit in coming up with more standardised  and enhanced disclosure requirements.
  • Emily thinks of the securities regulators as a pack that are running together with the same objective of trying to improve information for investors. Different jurisdictions may be leading the pack at different times. Europe is currently leading the pack in terms of breadth of topics that companies have to cover. European require double materiality. They are operating in a different policy area.
  • Emily believes that the commissioners are focused on getting the best information to investors. There may be different policy views as to what the best way forward is but Emily thinks as an independent agency, the SEC is doing its best to make those decisions focused on its core mandate and its mission.

Contact the hosts

Ryan Kisiel, Partner
Head of Sustain

H/Advisors Maitland, London

ryan.kisiel@h-advisors.global

 

Sébastien Ricard, Directeur Associé

H/Advisors Havas Paris, Paris

sebastien.ricard@havas.com