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Experts call for capacity-building, setting goals for sustainability reporting
Participants in the first session of the 13th CSR and Sustainable Development Forum – which is organized by CSR Egypt – came up with several recommendations, topped by capacity-building, setting goals and greater role of financing professionals, for sustainability reporting.
May Elwany, Co-founder & CEO of SALūS Global for Green Buildings, called for being simple, and starting with little steps, adding “You need to strategize. You need to know what to pick from the global standards. You need to go one project at a time…Everything is doable.”
Meanwhile, Malek Sarieddine, Regional Head of Business Development ACCA – Middle East considered as “critical” the collaboration between all the stakeholders, including NGOs, government, public sector, small and medium businesses, especially in developing economies and emerging markets.
He called on accountants, finance professionals and sustainability practitioners to play a greater role, expounding that they work to connect, control and monitor every sustainability data.
“They need to play bigger role, they need to integrate this within the strategies within which sustainability is embedded,” he highlighted.
“So, they need to play a bigger role and to do the capacity building because this is something new for all of us and we need developers and that’s the role of global bodies like the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) to play and to help in capacity building via the programs that we have developed,” he added.
Meanwhile, Maali Qasem Khader, CEO & Founder of Schema Advisory, said “I’d say starting point is building capacity throughout organizations and throughout the different sectors. Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) need to build capacities, …and in building the capacity helping each organization identify their business case for sustainability”.
She added that the most important point is to focus on the purpose and not to forget it.
“The purpose is to integrate that with the principles of ESG aligned with your business case, and have a holistic approach throughout the organization to drive sustainability forward,” she added.
As for advising Global South, she called for “identifying, assessing and managing risks that are related to climate change and see where those risks can be translated into opportunities…It is not all about risks, it’s all about finding opportunities to develop new products, to develop new services, to think of new processes, or integrating existing processes into new systems.”
She called for building capacity across the value chain, stressing that ethics and respect are needed.
For her part, Amber Greaney, Livable City Solutions Manager, said companies have to set a science-based target. Secondly, companies have to develop strategies to achieve those goals. Finally, they have to understand the opportunity and the power that they have in affecting their supply chain and their value chain.
Meanwhile, Nasser Ayoub, Co-founder & CEO of EDP Egypt, said “You should own a ‘CAT’ ”; calculate, assess and tack action.
He called for calculating and assessing the carbon footprint as well as taking action by setting targets based on science-based targets.
“It all comes from measurement ..You cannot manage what you cannot measure,” he concluded.
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