Have you heard about our ESG series? We just kicked it off at our first ESG Council meeting of 2021.
A big thank you to our speakers: Alejandra (Ale) Veltmann of ESG Lynk, Linette Casey of Siemens Energy, and Hillary Holmes and Robyn Zolman of Gibson Dunn.
ESG in the Energy Industry 101 from ALLY on Vimeo.
The Technical Aspects of ESG
Alejandra (Ale) Veltmann, CEO of ESG Lynk, Inc., kicked off the meeting with a technical presentation complete with some practical, no-nonsense information. She believes that ESG is about "connecting people to value that matters." Ale mentioned that ESG is best undersood by being broken down into three buckets: Who, What, and How. She spoke on processes for identifying and assessing climate-related risks, and about how risk management is the core of ESG. Ale even shared an example of how a company can connect their strategy to meet aspects of Environmental, Social, and Governance.
To Wrap it All Up: In order to build profits and longterm sustainability, companies must get serious about ESG and find ways to use it as a foundation for their day-to-day operations and overall purpose.
Here are the slides to Ale's presentation.
The Legal and Business Aspects of ESG
Hillary Holmes and Robyn Zolman, both partners at Gibson Dunn, presented next, sharing a lot of information on the legal and business side of ESG. They delved into the importance of getting Boards and Management to recognize that ESG isn't a trend, and is here to stay. Poor ESG performance can actually have an impact on access to capital. And as stated in their presentation, clear metrics and goals are essential. Many stakeholders have been paying attention to human capital lately, especially in terms of workforce diversity; this is the Social part of ESG that must be considered. They even touched upon investor demands for ESG reporting, shareholder proposals, ESG finance developments to watch, and recent ESG initiatives at the SEC.
To Wrap it all Up: In the oil and gas industry, there doesn't appear to be a consistent strategy for ESG. Individuals in leadership positions must make ESG a priority, and work on clearn metrics and goals in order to manage risks and evaluare the process.
Here are the slides to Gibson Dunn's presentation.
On-the-Ground ESG Experiences
Linette Casey of Siemens Energy, Inc. shared her and her company's real-life experiences with ESG. Since July 2020, her company has seen about 80% of their customers requesting ESG-related responses in bid specifications. Siemens work with companies across the entirety of the energy sector, and all customers are looking for that reporting and also asking for audits and reports on their supply chain to see, for example, who the vendors are (are they minority, woman, or veteran owned?)
Across the energy space, more and more companies are getting serious and asking questions related to sustainability and diversity.
Here are general slides for the presentation.
Thank you to all who attended. If you're a member, please be sure to RSVP for the June event here. And if you're not yet a member, go here to sign up, so that you can officially join our ESG Council.
Major appreciation goes to Gibson Dunn and terrapass for being Founding Members of this ESG series.
