A Governance Roadmap to Sustainable Value Creation" - Exclusive Reunion at the GUBERNA Home of Governance
On May 8th, we invited a group of alumni to our GUBERNA Home of governance. They had all followed the training “A governance roadmap on sustainable value creation” in 2023, and now gathered to exchange their experiences and observations since then, and to listen to a presentation of Delia Mensitieri on Diversity, equity and inclusion.
The training “A governance roadmap to sustainable value creation” investigates how the roles of the board are impacted by the sustainability transition. In the last edition in April, it was no surprise that the monitoring role got the most attention. Many companies have completed their sustainability reports, using the guidelines of the CSRD as obligation or as inspiration. The most urgent question that was raised is how auditors will rate and evaluate the reports, since we are in a landscape that is new for everyone. The participants learned from each other’s experiences, there was quite some discussion on the ESRS guidelines that fell under S, we discussed the complexities of agricultural regulation and the impact of the defense industry on some of the targets.
During the return session in May, we discussed further on the EY report presented at ECGC; and in particular on the comment that it seems that businesses are slowing down on the level of sustainability. From our discussion, a much more nuanced view appeared. Yes, businesses are slowing down because they operate in a complex environment. There are many strategic challenges to tackle, going from geopolitical effects to political evolutions and an economically difficult environment. Furthermore, the increasing regulations demand some effort to understand and to see the benefit of it, which makes that most companies are in a period of intense transition. However, it was noticed that a lot of companies were going the extra mile on sustainability, and that “slowing down” could also be considered as “becoming standard”. Sustainability becomes a normal, accepted thing to do – which however leads to the risk for best-in-class companies to lose their competitive advantage. And the global economic conditions create an uneven playing field to invest in sustainability.
A training programme such as “a governance roadmap to sustainable value creation”, diving into very recent material and concerns of the participants, stands or falls with the input of the participants. Its content has to change and be adapted constantly, because society and environment are changing continuously. On November 5th we organize a one-day session on sustainability, which highlights the impact of the transition on the strategic and financial discussions in the board and on the legal implications of the new regulation.
Make sure you watch the short recap video below.