Sustainability pioneer's advice on meaningful reporting
A report is the means to share data and support decision-making. Reporting influences stakeholders, and increasingly shareholders' perceptions. Hence, transparency in reporting is crucial for a company to earn stakeholders' trust and reputation. To prepare ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance), sustainability, as well as CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) reports, companies recognise the central role materiality plays. The definitions of materiality are evolving. Significant resources deliver to use; large chunks of data to adapt the context to the definitions set by the reporting authorities, to channel the corporate message. The CEO and top leadership allocate resources to the reporting tasks and, by approving the final document before publication. The top management teams held both publicly and internally accountable for the content. The report identifies the unique story of the company. The report content is the foundation from which the core message arises and for which the reporting team is responsible for delivering.
The founder of ESG Matters, Dr. Glenn Frommer, is our bearded grandpa of sustainability. His life experience and caring character have earned him this familial title. As the sustainability pioneer, he had partaken in setting up standards such as GRI G4 Reporting Guideline, the AccountAbility 1000AP Standard, and Reporting 3.0. How did he go from being an aerospace student to a sustainability pioneer? What does he think about the difficult part of setting up standards for reporting? Let's find out more about his journey!
Photo above: Dr. Frommer from ESG Matters
Q1: Hello! Dr. Frommer, I have heard your team call you grandpa. How did you get this title?
A: My sustainability history with my long flurry beard earns me the grandpa's name of sustainability. I was working on the noise propagation study in the before-computer era in the 70s. It is hard for my young team to imagine all data reduction, slopes, and plotting done by hand calculation. At that time, It took me one year to map one million points on graph paper.
Since then, I have put my effort into NASA's Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRV) program and NYU medical school pulmonary testing, applying fluid mechanics to breathing. I began my Ph.D. at Stanford University in California in 1973, looking at how the cochlear transformed acoustical signals into electrical ones and how the brain uses the information. Complexity and cutting-edge stuff put me onto the idea of working in a societal area.
My working profile of over twenty-two years in Mass Transit Railway (MTR) consolidated my academic knowledge and my work experiences into sustainability. That is why I got the title of the grandpa of sustainability.
Q2: How had you moved from your aerospace academic background to the sustainability field? Do you see your staying in Hong Kong as one of the turning points?
A: Since my move to Hong Kong in August 1992, I have rooted my ESG matters in this place with no question.
Independence at my young age did an excellent job for me, especially when I started to work on my own as an Environmental Manager in the Projects Division in MTR. Engaging in the project of the longest road in the world and rail suspension bridge and associated rolling stock, I was there to ensure the success of the Lantau and Airport Railway (LAR). The success in terms of my then-position meant zero environmental impacts raised from the LAR projects, having no harm to human lives and biodiversity around the site.
The year 2013 was the turning point of my life – retiring from the position as Head of Sustainability from MTR. I have been talking about sustainability for over twenty-two years. After my retirement, how could I sustain my advisory work and further develop from my experience to my goal of working in a societal area?
In 2014, I founded ESG Matters Limited.
I have never stopped learning, from my academics, from my career, from my life. I have comprehended well about learning during my time in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has an exceptional culture of learning, and we can build on that for sustainable development. We are all far behind what we need to achieve. There are almost no countries capable of providing a sustainable lifestyle with regenerating natural resources for our future generations. The current Covid-19 event is just the first test. Climate change is not far behind; after that, the biodiversity will collapse. There is so much to do and not much time to do it in.
Q3: What is ESG Matters? More than a company name, what do ESG Matters mean to you?
A: Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) matters to our society, our employees, our government, and our investors. ESG is the entire spectrum of environmental and social issues that make our organizations accountable while seeking continual improvement. The establishment of ESG Matters Limited hits right on the rising need for ESG. More than advisories, our team shapes ESG Matters with a commitment to accelerate the pace of ESG through technology. That is our flagship ESG Dashboard.
I am very fortunate to be associated with a young, intelligent, and dedicated team at ESG Matters. Our team has so much to encounter. I am confident that our team will commit to technological progress in the ESG sector.
Q4: As our grandpa, what advice would you like to give to the rising leaders who engage themselves in the sustainability field, in an attempt to develop the practices for their corporation?
A: I am pleased that I have got a chance to set up standards such as GRI G4 Reporting Guideline, the AccountAbility 1000AP Standard, and Reporting 3.0. Setting standards is not difficult. The most challenging part is how to apply these standards to real cases. Questions that we will need to ask are: how and what you would measure, how to compute the numbers, how you record, what you would use to compare the result, how you would use the numbers to reduce the impacts to the acceptable level. These are not easy tasks. The key is to develop the process, implement the systems, and get others to recognize the benefits of doing so.
The development is ever-changing, and big corporations are starting to pay more attention to ESG topics, whether for reputation, ESG reporting, commercial purposes. Leaders will need to focus on the areas which are beneficial to employees and organizations concurrently. When CSR is the initiative, ESG factors revealing the performance in the report. It is necessary to develop productive skills, competencies, and habits through continual learning to the ESG factors to confront the evolving world.