ESG Mindset
“This book is a bold and engaging attempt to unpack the confusion and provides an objective view of an all-round stock-taking on where we go from here with ESG.”
― Helene Li, CEO and Co-Founder, GoImpact Capital Partners
About the book
Today, companies are thrashing their resources and flailing their budgets as they figure out how to disclose metrics, deal with material risks, and capture new opportunities, all while storytelling about impact.
Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance issues cut at the core of business, threatening to upend industries, the markets, and capitalism itself. Yet, despite a renewed focus on ESG, companies struggle to understand its meaning and how it can help address new interconnected crises.
This book guides company leaders and employees to something ESG hasn’t had before – a consistent meaning that uncovers value by realizing the impact of the world on their company while reframing the company’s impact beyond the bottom line and along its purpose.
Available now at Amazon, Kogan Page, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and wherever books are sold!
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Praise for ESG Mindset
Chapters
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Defining ESG through its origins, covering what it is and isn't, and why an ESG mindset is just the thing to address an imprecise and imperfect world.
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Covering off on the complex ESG data supply chain, the standards and regulations, and moving into the business value of ESG data, which is often overlooked.
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The Environmental intersection with the business, including transition and climate risk and material E issues.
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Covering Friedman to Fink, the Social tipping points that drove ESG attention post 2020, and why the S is in the middle of the acronym.
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Governance has to come first, stakeholders and materiality are in the middle, and why nothing gets past poor Governance, even the company's survival.
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Technology is the fourth pillar of ESG and intersects twice with companies. First, it can solve ESG issues. Second, it has similar risks and opportunities to the rest of the pillars.
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Covering the rise of intangibles, mainstreaming ESG across the business with an example journey, and how to drive ESG improvements and innovation.
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ESG started as a financial services concept. This chapter looks at ESG through banking, capital markets, and insurance
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Criticisms of ESG from activists and anti-ESG pundits and using an ESG mindset as a defense through consistency and materiality.
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The interconnected nature of ESG and the risks that put pressure on a company, including a polycrisis!
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A review of how business can do well by doing good by bringing ESG concepts to the core functions and how the path to impact lies through ESG.
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A review of where ESG needs to go next and how trends may evolve, including timing the end of ESG well.
Who is this book for?
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Business leaders who are looking to move beyond disclosures into the business value of ESG through mainstreaming the concept across the organization.
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CSR, sustainability, and ESG professionals who are making the case to fund improvements and innovation toward resilient operations.
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Employees who are filled with a newfound sense of purpose and looking to channel their energy and time into meaningful and productive work.
About the author
Matthew Sekol is a Sustainability Global Black Belt on Microsoft’s Cross-Industry team. He has spent nearly 20 years working at the nexus of business and technology and advocates for data, technology, and ESG to drive change.
He also serves on the LP Advisory Committee of Morgan Stanley’s Next Level Fund, which inclusively invests in underrepresented startups. In 2023, Onalytica named him to its Who's Who in ESG influencer list. In 2024, he joined Enzo Advisors, an ESG consultancy, as a Senior Advisor.