Insights

June 24, 2024

2024 SBER Q2 Symposium

SR Inc held our Sustainable Business & Enterprise Roundtable (SBER) Q2 Executive Symposium on June 13th, 2024. We enjoyed meeting with everyone at the UMass Club in Boston and in the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco.

Consistent with SR Inc’s two overarching themes for 2024 research, Moving To Mandatory Reporting and Scope 1-3 Decarbonization, the SR Inc team appreciated the in-depth discussions at the Symposium and looks forward to deepening collaboration on these topics to help set the agenda for 2025.

The first portion of this symposium focused on Sustainability Strategy Leadership, during which Jim Boyle, SR Inc’s CEO and Founder, shared insights on “Sustainable Leadership and Profound Discontinuity,” including anti-ESG backlash, developing an unassailable definition of corporate sustainability, and a Dignity First Leadership approach to addressing human-caused climate and environmental breakdown. Key takeaways from this section include:

1. Expect “ESG backlash,” rooted in protecting investments in fossil fuel companies, to grow.
2. Focusing enterprise sustainability on enterprise success in a profoundly challenged world is not susceptible to meaningful anti-ESG backlash.
3. Corporate sustainability thought leaders promoting “degrowth” are just inverting the growth paradigm they seek to attack.
4. Earth systems sciences clearly indicate an unprecedented unfolding global tragedy, which renders “climate optimism” inappropriate.
5. Enterprise sustainability leaders can instead center human dignity on an executive, enterprise, and economic level.
6. Leading macroeconomic and commercial enterprise strategists recognize the need to establish “The Value of Values.”
7. Rocky Mountain Institute’s “The Cleantech Revolution” reveals why the linear models have been all wrong.
8. As “The Cleantech Revolution” makes clear, our opportunity is to accelerate renewable energy deployment from 2x to 3x by 2030 to avert self-accelerating collapse,

The next portion of the event examined SR Inc’s latest guidance on the SEC Climate Disclosure Rule, focusing on evaluating materiality, understanding options to meet assurance requirements, and providing guidance on working cross-functionally to prepare for reporting compliance. SR Inc’s case-based research and the insightful contributions of our symposium participants help to advance our mission of accelerating the development and adoption of best practices in more sustainable business.

During this session, SR Inc Senior Analyst Alison Millman shared details and resources on key steps in preparing for SEC rule compliance and managing the integration of climate risk into the company’s financial reporting process. This presentation included considerations around evaluating materiality for the SEC rule, scoring material financial risks, and structuring cross-functional collaboration. Additionally, the SR Inc team shared insights on navigating assurance needs to prepare to comply with the SEC ruling.

Participants then heard from SR Inc Member-Client Chris Demers, Director of ESG at Juniper Networks, as he shared Juniper’s process of preparing for the SEC rule, including work-plan development, cross-functional and senior management engagement, and lessons learned from working with external partners. Chris and other participants in San Francisco and Boston discussed practical steps to work with cross-functional partners, balancing different areas of expertise and the range of timelines and requirements that sustainability executives are facing. Key findings highlighted during this portion and discussion include:

SR Inc recommends 4 key steps for the integration of climate risks into the company’s financial reporting process:

1. Map SEC’s requirements interaction with those of CSRD, other mandatory frameworks, and voluntary reporting.
2. Collaborate to analyze gaps and map next steps for sustainability reporting, climate risk management, and control processes.
3. Educate other functions through past and current voluntary disclosures.
4. Procure an ESG assurance partner that can meet the SEC’s requirements for Scope 1 and 2 attestation.

Member-Clients can find in-depth information on these topics in the Digital Library, including the Member Advisory on Executive Guidance for the SEC Climate Disclosure Rule and Discussion Guides for Engaging with the ERM and Internal Audit Teams.

In addition to the SEC Disclosure Rule and mandatory reporting guidance, the Symposium highlighted reporting through the frame of ESG software. With Member-Client companies seeking solutions for calculating and reporting their GHG inventories, as well as strategic support and streamlining of their decarbonization program, the SR Inc team shared the analysis of our Spring 2024 RFI for software solution providers.

Senior Analyst Casey Maslan shared details of the developed criteria used to assess over 20 unique solution providers, and highlighted how this criteria manifested for two specific solutions. In the complete RFI analysis deliverable, Member-Client executives can review easily-comparable radar charts for every participating software solution, demonstrating what SR Inc and Member-Client executives see as their differentiating capabilities.

A special thank you goes to Matthew Yamatin, Sustainability Program Director at Thermo Fisher Scientific, for his discussion of Thermo Fisher’s environmental data collection launch plan, focused around their use of ESG software. Another thank you goes to Scott Diehl, Vice President of Central Data Operations at PTC, for his discussion of PTC’s experience selecting and using a software solution. Key takeaways from these portions of the symposium include:

 

 

1.  There are an increasing number of ESG software solutions on the market, making it more difficult to differentiate which solution will best suit your team’s specific needs.
2. Few software solutions are strong across all aspects of an ESG strategy (GHG accounting, decarbonization, reporting, etc.), and Member-Clients should prioritize which features will best serve their team’s goals.
3. It is likely that, even though a software solution may provide support across a range of topics, multiple software solutions (such as ESG reporting-specific or supplier engagement-specific solutions) will be required to fully support your team’s needs.
4. Thermo Fisher Scientific is pursuing multiple software solutions to support the full suite of its ESG program’s needs, including GHG accounting for its 600 global sites, preparing for voluntary and mandatory ESG reporting, and engaging with its thousands of suppliers. Matthew Yamatin, their Sustainability Program Director, recommends having RFP finalists create sandbox testing environments and hold formal demonstrations, and, especially, speak with other companies with similar needs that use the software solutions.

Member-Clients can also find in the Digital Library our deliverables on these topics, including the 2024 ESG Software Solutions Review and 2024 Employee Engagement Software Solutions Review.

We will continue to deepen our research and guidance leading up to the SBER Q3 Executive Symposium, which will be held during Climate Week in New York City on September 26th, 2024. Additionally, we look forward to the Summit for Sustainable Business VIII: Decarbonizing Corporate Global Operations on December 6th, 2024 at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The SR Inc Digital Library is accessible exclusively to Member-Client executives. Please contact info@sustainround.com to learn more about gaining access to the full extent of the SR Inc Digital Library through an SR Inc Membership.