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by Morgan Fitzpatrick
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With the launch of the 2024 S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA), you might be among the 13,000 companies reviewing their questionnaires for this year鈥檚 CSA.
The S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) is one of the world鈥檚 most comprehensive annual assessments of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance based on financially material sustainability indicators, weighted to reflect what matters most in your industry. The results are used by hundreds of thousands of stakeholders every year 鈥� ranging from investors looking to inform investment decisions, to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and other non-financial stakeholders interested in company sustainability performance, and by companies themselves to gain a better understanding of their own sustainability journey.
To begin planning for this year鈥檚 CSA, we recommend implementing a structured process that involves these 4 steps:
Step one in building your plan includes delving into the S&P Global CSA methodology.
The CSA methodology is updated annually, capturing essential changes to the assessment criteria, including changes in criteria weighting. When conducting a methodology deep dive, you may want to consider:
The second step involves utilising insights from the methodology deep dive in step 1 to perform a thorough gap analysis.
To perform a gap analysis, consider:
Step three involves assessing synergies to streamline reporting efforts.
The CSA takes into account key standards and frameworks such as GRI, TCFD and UN PRI, indicating overlap and opportunities for utilising information from already existing company disclosures.
Understanding the alignment of your CSA submission with other reporting requirements will help minimise duplication of efforts and ensure consistency across your disclosures. When aligning your CSA questions with other requirements, consider:
The final step requires mapping data owner across teams for collaboration on the CSA.
As with any reporting exercise, identifying and involving relevant data owners early in the process will ensure greater share of input and help bring attention to sustainability issues that need to be integrated into existing processes and decisions. When mapping relevant data owners, consider:
At SLR, our global team possesses a wealth of expertise in ESG reporting and disclosure, offering comprehensive sustainability support throughout your CSA journey, including:
In our latest SLR webinar series, we offer our view on the 鈥楻aters & Rankers鈥� industry. On the first episode of this series our experts discussed 鈥渢he Industry today鈥� (watch the full ); the second episode鈥檚 focus is S&P鈥檚 Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment ().
to the third event of this series where our EcoVadis experts will be discussing how to achieve a robust assessment and maximising your organisation's sustainability rating.
Get in touch with our global CSA experts for further information.
by Morgan Fitzpatrick
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