Anand Mahindra among Global Business Leaders to Support ESG Convergence

Tricitynews Reporter

Chandigarh Jan. 23, 2021:- Along with a growing coalition of  business leaders across industries, Mahindra Group announced its commitment to implement the Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics. These are a set of environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics and disclosures released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and its International Business Council (IBC) that measure the long-term enterprise value creation for all stakeholders.

Of the commitment, Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group, said that purpose driven businesses are likely to be more resilient than those that do not embrace people and planet. Investors recognize that. We support World Economic Forum’s effort to standardize reporting through the development of comprehensive ESG metrics and believe that this will be a step forward for a sustainable world.

The Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics, drawn from existing voluntary standards, offer a core set of 21 universal, comparable disclosures focused on people, planet, prosperity and principles of governance that are considered most critical for business, society and the planet. They strengthen the ability of companies and investors to benchmark progress on sustainability matters, thereby improving decision-making and enhancing transparency and accountability regarding the shared and sustainable value companies create.  These leaders and their organizations, including Mahindra, Dow, Unilever, Nestlé and Sony have committed to: 

1. Reflect the core metrics in their reporting to investors and other stakeholders (e.g. annual report, sustainability report, proxy statements, or other materials) by reporting on the metrics most relevant to their business or briefly explaining why a different approach is more appropriate 

2. Publicly support this work and encourage their business partners to do so  

3. Promote the further convergence of existing ESG standards, frameworks and principles to support progress towards a globally accepted solution for non-financial reporting on common ESG metrics   

In making these commitments, business leaders are signalling that ESG factors are increasingly critical to the success and long-term viability of all businesses. This clearly represents the intent from leading global companies to integrate sustainability into their core strategy, operations and corporate disclosures. 

Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum said that stakeholder capitalism becomes now really mainstream. The public commitments from companies to report not only on financial matters but also their ESG impacts are an important step towards a global economy that works for progress, people and the planet.

Intentionally built around existing standards - CDP, the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB),  these metrics include themes like quality of governing body, stakeholder engagement, ethical behavior and risk & opportunity oversight. By adopting and reporting onthese metrics and disclosures, the business community will continue to catalyze greater cooperation and alignment among existing standards and encourage progress on the development of a systemic, globally accepted set of common standards for reporting on sustainability performance. 

Mahindra Group has been publishing Sustainability Reports based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework, considered the gold standard globally on reporting, for the last twelve years. Mahindra & Mahindra has been publishing Integrated Report on the International <IR> Framework for the last three years. These are globally multi award- winning reports.