Monitor rewards companies with strong green practices

AS THE next generation enters the workplace, many will be looking to work for a company that not only offers an attractive pay package but one that operates in an ethical way. I think it’s fair to say that millennials won’t invest, emotionally or financially, in a company that doesn’t stand for something.

The most valuable businesses today are those that have firm ethical stances, strong green credentials and that create a better environment for employees, suppliers and customers.

Regardless of your environmental position, the capitalist in you must recognise that sustainability represents a new opportunity for finance and other industries. The future is green whether you believe it or not. Surely even those who claim climate change is nothing more than an elaborate hoax still want to live and work in a world that continues to prosper, so what’s the harm in jumping on the eco bandwagon?

It seems clear that the future of business and industry is in sustainable solutions, green energy, ethical trading and strong community awareness. The next generation is made of Thunbergs, not Trumps. But it will take more than simply saying you are good and that you are ethical to convince them – you’ll have to prove it. But, how do you prove goodness? What metric do you use? What are the benchmarks against which organisations should be judged?

How do you know if a company is ethically responsible?

Right now, we don’t really. There have always been some obvious signs of what makes for a ‘bad’ company, and we all have some personal line that we would find unacceptable if crossed; testing on animals, slave labour, child labour, high rates of pollution, high carbon emissions, pay inequality, sexism and discrimination.

But what makes a ‘good’ company. How can you tell as an outsider what an organisation’s internal green policies are or what their community commitment is? How much do they give to charity? What are their employment policies? What is their waste strategy? These things are often not evident and that’s why I have been helping to create the Environmental and Social Impact Monitor (ESI Monitor), a not-for-profit business that will rank and rate local businesses for their standards and commitment to both the community and environment.

The ESI Monitor will recognise businesses for their positive actions, their benefit to the local community and their efforts to reduce our island’s impact on the planet.

It will show consumers and stakeholders which businesses are making the greatest contribution to the green agenda and to the community. It will provide globally recognised kitemarks meaning that international clients will immediately see where a Guernsey business has great environmental and social values and commitments.

Not only that but it will provide a trusted framework to assess a range of factors that affect a company’s environmental footprint, including their energy use, waste management and travel policies, and consider the best ways of reducing and mitigating their environmental impact. It will support and recognise the great work going on in the business community to make Guernsey a more environmentally sustainable island.

What does the ESI Monitor want to achieve and who is it for?

Ultimately the ESI rating is for companies that are doing something as opposed to just saying something. Organisations of any size and from any industry can apply for accreditation and I hope that ultimately this will help to enhance Guernsey’s reputation and secure its place as a world leader in sustainability.

The ESI Monitor provides independently certified benchmarked ratings of organisations’ community and environmental commitments and policies and rewards their sustainability. Monitoring provides companies with quarterly data on their position in their industry, which means that employees, customers, regulators and stakeholders will be able to choose that organisation over a competitor.

The ratings can enhance an organisation’s performance, profitability and sustainability, and it also demonstrates that your organisation is worthy of long-term support and investment.

The ESI Monitor is about rewarding companies that have strong green practices and a deep commitment to the issues that affect the local community. It’s potentially a huge step into Guernsey’s greener future and while I like to think that ethical, eco-friendly, socially responsible structures should, at best, be practised because a company is intrinsically good and corporately responsible, at worst it should still be practised because it will help the bottom line.