Poor corporate governance puts ESG plan at risk
KUALA LUMPUR: Poor corporate governance in an organisation will definitely put the entire Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy at risk, say experts.
Anthony Tan, financial management and member, AllParty Parliamentary Group Malaysia (APPGM)-Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Project, said the ‘G’ in the ESG has nothing to do with the government but is best defined as the governance system in organisations.
“If it (governance) is not strong, you will have a problem. The organisation will struggle to successfully implement good practices on the environmental and social fronts.
“Inadequate governance practices make it more likely that organisations will lag behind to meet ESG goals, including those that would improve their social and environmental records,” he said during the panel discussion on ESG Best Practices – Accelerating Action and Change at the ESG Corporate Summit titled “Driving Sustainability and Sustainable Transformation”.
The summit was jointly organised by The Economic Club of Kuala Lumpur (ECKL) and the KSI Strategic Institute for Asia Pacific.
Tan said good governance is a necessary component in achieving the objectives, thus an organisation that excels at making decisions and implementing them is more likely to succeed at improving its social and environmental performance.
Concurring with him, Centre for Environment, Technology and Development Malaysia chairman Gurmit Singh said said governance represents how companies are run and managed.
“And I think this covers a whole range of things on organisational policies...You need to have a dispersion (of) policy transparency,” he said, adding the benefits of good governance included an organisation that makes better decisions wherein processes are run more efficiently.
Meanwhile, United Nations (UN) Global Compact Network Malaysia and Brunei executive director Faroze Nadar said businesses must not wait for the government initiatives in order to have a successful ESG platform. — Bernama