Building lasting value through responsible management
The Middle Way Pty Ltd assists clients across Australia to:
- identify and prioritise their environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues when developing their business plans.
- analyse the implications of relevant guidelines and policies from government and relevant industry bodies for conducting their business in an ethical manner;
- develop ESG performance indicators for their core activities and assets, and benchmark them against international frameworks;
- disclose relevant non-financial information on their performance for their investors, corporate regulators, suppliers and customers.
Modern organisations face an ongoing need to manage a wide range of social and governance issues as part of their right to hold a licence to operate. But the World Economic Forum recently identified the two leading global challenges as the loss of natural biological systems and climate change
Each is progressing rapidly and together are driving an unavoidable, progressive and fundamental threat to the existence of life on the earth as we know it.
One of the highly publicised measures for responding is the establishment of a Net Zero 2050 concept with more than 140 countries setting a net-zero target, covering about 88% of global carbon emissions. Its focus is on reducing carbon emissions across the planet as far as possible beforehand, and then relying on future technologies to remove the residual greenhouse gases from the atmosphere after 2050.
The Australian Government is a signatory, and is receiving support from local businesses and academia. But while the topic may seem to be of limited relevance to SMEs operating here, it is important to realise that the risk assessments being conducted by large international corporations also cover the activities of entities in their supply chain.
Australian exporters can therefore expect to be questioned on their efforts to constrain carbon emissions and conserve biodiversity. An obligation to do so could also be stipulated as conditions of future supply contracts.
