Sustainability Strategy and ESG Framework

ESG strategy has shifted from a voluntary disclosure exercise into a board level strategic discipline as regulatory regimes go mandatory. ISSB IFRS S1 and S2 took effect in January 2024, EU CSRD covers financial year 2024 for firms above 50,000 employees, SEBI BRSR Core applies to the top 150 listed Indian entities and the SEC Climate Rule remains pending. Investor coalitions such as Climate Action 100 plus, NZAOA, NZBA and GFANZ now require quantitative engagement, and proxy advisors such as ISS and Glass Lewis embed ESG into their voting recommendations. Effective strategy work starts with double materiality, the ESRS and CSRD approach that combines financial materiality with impact materiality, rather than the single financial materiality of ISSB. From there our team maps stakeholder priorities through structured engagement, designs ESG governance that reaches board and audit committee level and translates the strategy into measurable indicators aligned to disclosure regime data points. The hardest decisions are usually where to set the materiality threshold, how to set targets that are ambitious enough to be credible yet achievable enough to be honest, and how to design ESG linked compensation that aligns leadership behaviour without becoming gameable. The SBTi rejection of more than 200 companies in 2024 raised that bar. The 2020s have added climate litigation defensibility, compliance with the EU Green Claims Directive of 2024 and human rights due diligence under the EU CSDDD, adopted in 2024 and phased into effect between 2027 and 2029, as load bearing dimensions of strategy.