An ESG Policy Checklist

An ESG Governance Policy Checklist - Last Updated: August 8, 2022

Today, most companies have committed to improving their environment, social, and governance (ESG) performance, reporting, and ratings to meet growing demands from investors, customers, and policy-makers. As a result, annual ESG reporting, implementation, and policy development are essential for businesses of all sizes and sectors. But, if you're an organization that's newer to ESG and sustainability, where do you start? What are the right first steps in creating an employee and supplier-centric ESG program?

For most organizations, one of the most important steps in integrating ESG throughout your organization's day-to-day decision-making is to a develop smart, comprehensive set of ESG policies and guidelines. This playbook will walk you through some of the most important ESG policies to develop, implement, and communicate at your company.

Keep in mind, depending on your organization's size, location, business model, and value chain, not all of these ESG policies will be relevant to you. Moreover, ESG policy development, implementation, and integration is a phased approach. Some policies will take priority, whereas others may be a better fit for a later stage in your ESG implementation roadmap.

Brightest's List of Essential ESG Policies

Your Next Steps With ESG After Policy Development

Smart ESG policy roll-out takes time, effort, thoughtfulness, and resources. Remember, ESG policy development goes beyond having a checklist or library of documents: it's important to also communicate those policies to employees, suppliers, partners, investors, and other key stakeholders. Reinforce your policies with regular trainings, learning and development programs, and ongoing reinforcement and measurement efforts.

ESG policies evolve over time. Every company's ESG roadmap is different - and ESG truly is a long-term, strategic journey for boards and management teams. Nonetheless, the benefits of strong ESG performance on brand reputation, employee talent, culture, operational efficiency, risk management, and access to capital are not only numerous - many are quantifiable.

Brightest provides companies with a unified toolkit to launch, administer, track, and improve sustainability and ESG performance

We wish you and your team all the best as you continue ahead with your ESG implementation. If we can be helpful at all (at any step in your journey), please get in touch. A central part of our mission and work here at Brightest is enabling better data-driven decision-making (and actions) to help companies achieve their full ESG potential.