ESG Technical Skills in Corporate Sustainability & Consulting

Summary

Tiana Bowie's video delves into sustainability skills in the corporate and consulting world. She discusses reporting disclosures, frameworks, and assessments, highlighting the importance of understanding a company's environmental impact. Tiana introduces two major disclosure reporting systems, CDP and EcoVatis, and explains frameworks like GRI, SASB, and TCFD. She also touches on greenhouse gas accounting, water risk assessment, and materiality assessment, providing a comprehensive look at the technical skills needed for corporate sustainability roles.

Takeaways

• 🌿 Tiana Bowie's channel focuses on sustainability and technical skills in corporate and consulting worlds.
• 📚 Tiana emphasizes the importance of learning about sustainability skills that are not typically taught in school.
• 🔗 Tiana provides resource links for further learning on sustainability topics.
• 👗 Tiana promotes sustainable fashion brands like Julie Brand, Anna Louisa, and their impact reports.
• ♻️ The concept of 'circular' design in products is explained, referring to the reuse of materials.
• 📊 Reporting disclosures involve companies filling out surveys and questionnaires about their sustainability impacts.
• 🔍 Two major disclosure reporting systems mentioned are CDP and EcoVatis.
• 📝 Reporting frameworks guide companies on how to write sustainability reports, with GRI, SASB, and TCFD being common ones.
• 🌡️ Greenhouse gas accounting is a key technical skill, involving quantifying a company's emissions using the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
• 💧 Water impact assessments help companies understand their water consumption and discharge.
• 📈 Materiality assessments help companies identify and focus on the most important environmental impacts.

Q & A

Who is Tiana Bowie?

Tiana Bowie is the host of the video, who shares her knowledge on sustainability technical skills learned in the corporate and consulting world.

What is the purpose of Tiana Bowie's video?

The purpose of the video is to break down different sustainability technical skills, providing resources for viewers to learn more on their own.

What brand does Tiana mention in her video, and why?

Tiana mentions the brand Anna Louisa, highlighting its sustainability efforts and transparency through an impact report detailing its environmental actions.

What are reporting disclosures as mentioned in the video?

Reporting disclosures are surveys and questionnaires that companies complete online to share information about their sustainability impacts, governance, and strategies to reduce impacts. They receive a score to indicate their performance to investors, customers, and stakeholders.

What are the two main disclosure reporting systems Tiana has been exposed to?

The two main disclosure reporting systems are CDP and Ecovadis.

What are reporting frameworks, and how do they differ from reporting disclosures?

Reporting frameworks provide guidance on how to write a sustainability report, focusing on structuring the report with specific information. Unlike reporting disclosures, which involve completing online surveys for a score, frameworks guide the content of a report.

Can you name some common reporting frameworks Tiana discusses?

The common reporting frameworks discussed are GRI, SASB, and TCFD.

What is a materiality assessment in the context of corporate sustainability?

A materiality assessment helps a company identify the most important environmental impacts to focus on. It involves interviewing key stakeholders to understand their priorities and results in a matrix highlighting these important issues.

How does Tiana suggest learning about sustainability technical skills if you're not in the industry?

Tiana suggests downloading and analyzing large companies' sustainability reports, searching for frameworks like GRI, and cross-referencing this information with the actual framework guidance available online.

What are the three types of assessments Tiana mentions, and what do they evaluate?

Tiana mentions greenhouse gas accounting, water risk assessment, and materiality assessment. These evaluate a company's carbon emissions, water consumption and impact, and prioritization of environmental issues, respectively.

Outlines

00:00

🌿 Sustainability Skills in Corporate World

Tiana Bowie introduces her channel and discusses the importance of learning sustainability technical skills in the corporate and consulting sectors. She emphasizes the lack of such knowledge during her schooling and provides resources for further learning. Tiana also talks about the importance of sustainability in fashion, specifically mentioning the brands Julie Brand Anna Louisa, highlighting their commitment to sustainability through an impact report and circular design.

05:02

📝 Reporting Disclosures and Frameworks

The video delves into the world of reporting disclosures, which are surveys and questionnaires that companies fill out to assess their sustainability impacts. Tiana explains the two major reporting systems, CDP and EcoVatis, and their focus areas. She also discusses reporting frameworks, such as GRI, SASB, and TCFD, which provide guidance on how to write sustainability reports. The importance of these frameworks for investors and stakeholders is highlighted, along with the prevalence of GRI in the Russell 1000 companies.

10:04

🔍 Environmental Assessments

Tiana discusses the concept of environmental assessments, which involve quantifying a company's environmental impact. She covers greenhouse gas accounting, water risk assessment, and materiality assessment. The U.S. Greenhouse Gas Protocol is mentioned as a common calculation method, and the importance of understanding different scopes of carbon emissions is emphasized. Tiana also touches on the complexity of water risk assessment and the need for a multi-tool approach. Materiality assessment is introduced as a way for companies to prioritize their environmental focus areas based on stakeholder input.

15:04

📚 Recap and Conclusion

Tiana concludes the video by summarizing the key points discussed, including the importance of sustainability skills, the role of reporting disclosures and frameworks, and the significance of environmental assessments. She encourages viewers to explore these topics further and provides a recap slide for easy reference. The video ends with a sign-off and background music.

Keywords

💡Sustainability

Sustainability refers to the ability to maintain or improve the well-being of current and future generations without depleting resources or causing long-term harm to the environment. In the video, Tiana Bowie discusses various technical skills related to sustainability in the corporate and consulting world, highlighting the importance of understanding and implementing sustainable practices within businesses.

💡Technical Skills

Technical skills are the specialized abilities required to perform specific tasks or jobs effectively. In the context of the video, these skills pertain to sustainability, such as understanding and managing a company's environmental impact. Tiana emphasizes the importance of these skills for those working in corporate sustainability roles or consulting.

💡Reporting Disclosures

Reporting disclosures are the processes by which companies provide information about their sustainability impacts, governance, and strategies to reduce their environmental footprint. In the video, Tiana mentions that companies fill out surveys and questionnaires, such as those from the CDP and EcoVatis, to receive a score that reflects their performance compared to industry peers.

💡Reporting Frameworks

Reporting frameworks are structured guidelines that help companies write and present their sustainability reports. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) are examples mentioned in the video. These frameworks provide a standardized approach to reporting, making it easier for stakeholders to understand and compare a company's sustainability efforts.

💡Assessments

Assessments in the context of the video refer to the evaluation of a company's environmental impact. This includes greenhouse gas accounting, water impact assessments, and materiality assessments. These assessments help companies understand their most significant environmental impacts and prioritize their sustainability efforts, as explained by Tiana when discussing the importance of focusing on what's material to the company.

💡Circular Design

Circular design is an approach to product and material lifecycles that aims to minimize waste and make the most of resources. It involves designing products to be reused, repaired, or recycled. Tiana Bowie praises the brand Julie Brand for having a positive impact on the environment through their circular design practices, which align with the company's commitment to sustainability.

💡Carbon Neutral

A carbon-neutral company has a net-zero carbon footprint, meaning it offsets its carbon emissions by investing in projects that remove an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Tiana mentions that Julie Brand is carbon neutral certified, which demonstrates their commitment to reducing their environmental impact.

💡Impact Report

An impact report is a document that details a company's efforts and achievements in sustainability, including their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Tiana Bowie refers to Julie Brand's impact report as a transparent way for the company to communicate its sustainability initiatives and their effectiveness.

💡Sustainability Team

A sustainability team is a group within a company responsible for driving and managing the organization's sustainability strategies and initiatives. Tiana discusses the importance of having a dedicated team or outsourcing expertise, especially for businesses that lack the resources to develop and implement sustainability programs on their own.

💡Greenhouse Gas Accounting

Greenhouse gas accounting involves quantifying a company's emissions of greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change. Tiana explains that this process involves collecting data, using calculation methods like the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Protocol, and categorizing emissions into different scopes to understand a company's carbon footprint.

💡Materiality Assessment

A materiality assessment helps a company identify and prioritize the environmental, social, and governance issues that are most relevant to its operations and stakeholders. Tiana describes this process as crucial for companies new to sustainability, as it guides them in focusing their efforts on the most significant impacts and opportunities for improvement.

Highlights

Tiana Bowie's channel focuses on sustainability and technical skills in the corporate and consulting world.

Tiana shares resources for learning about sustainability skills outside of the video content.

Julie Brand Anna Louisa is a sustainable fashion brand with an impact report, focusing on carbon footprint, water impacts, and circular design.

The brand is carbon neutral certified and works with external partners for environmental guidance.

Tiana discusses reporting disclosures, which are surveys and questionnaires companies fill out to assess their sustainability impacts.

Two major disclosure reporting systems are CDP and EcoVatis.

CDP has three types of questionnaires: climate change, water assessment, and forest impacts.

EcoVatis focuses on environmental management within a company and requires documentation and evidence for answers.

Reporting frameworks guide companies on how to write sustainability reports, with GRI, SASB, and TCFD being common ones.

GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) is widely used, with 52% of Russell 1000 companies using it in 2020.

SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) helps companies identify, manage, and communicate financially material sustainability information.

TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) focuses on understanding a company's impact by climate change and strategies to mitigate it.

Assessments involve quantifying a company's environmental impact, including greenhouse gas accounting, water impacts, and materiality assessment.

Greenhouse gas accounting involves quantifying emissions using the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Protocol and understanding different scopes of emissions.

Water risk assessment tools like WRI Aqueduct help companies understand their water consumption and discharge.

Materiality assessment helps companies identify and focus on the most important environmental impacts relevant to their operations.

Transcripts

hi everyone and welcome to my channel

for those of you who don't know me my

name is tiana bowie and welcome to

another video where i'll be breaking

down the different sustainability

technical skills that i've come to learn

in the corporate and consulting world

and so i hope you guys do find this

useful i definitely know when i was in

school i totally did not know about any

of these things and so really do hope

that it's somewhat useful with every

skill that i present i will have some

sort of resource link there for you to

learn more about it on your own time and

again this is more of just a high-level

view of everything and so if you want to

learn more please

i inquire you to go and use the free

guidances and resources out there to

help you learn a little bit more of how

to actually do the technical skills

before you start the video i just wanted

to take some time to tell you about this

julie brand anna louisa and in this

video i am wearing two of their pieces

paris and heritage and i'm really fond

of it because it really just adds that

subtle yet extra pop to whatever it is

i'm wearing that day i was impressed

with this brand because unlike similar

brands out there that just talk the talk

when it comes to sustainability

preaching it all over the web pages and

lisa actually has an impact report out

there so you can see in the report they

do mention three key areas as it relates

to the environment so they share

information about their carbon footprint

their water impacts and how it is that

they're designing their products to be

more circular and so if you're not quite

sure what being circular means it really

just means being able to give the raw

materials and materials that's being

used in the products and other life so

either that you know being repaired or

maybe

having a recycling program out there so

it can be reused in the jewelry that

they have or maybe can be a material for

another

business out there that might be able to

use it they're also carbon neutral

certified which means that they've had

their carbon emissions reviewed and

offset by a verification company and

they also work with external partners

for guidance on how to reduce the

environmental impacts which i have to

say is a really important thing because

a lot of businesses they don't really

have a sustainability team and so if

they're just trying to figure out by

themselves like it's not going to work

out they really do sometimes have to

outsource especially

if they don't have all the resources out

there but overall i'm excited to see how

they progress in the future and if you

are interested in trying out a piece for

them i've added a link in the

description for you to check out after

this video

so the different skills i wanted to

share with you guys today is one all

about reporting disclosures the second

one will be about reporting frameworks

and the last one to be all about

assessments

so reporting disclosures are pretty much

surveys and questionnaires that

companies go online and answer and fill

out and this information is about their

sustainability impacts their governance

how their strategies are going to reduce

their impacts and all that good stuff

and at the end of it they do receive a

score so then investors customers and

their stakeholders can understand how

they're doing amongst their peers in

this industry but then also just overall

what it is that they're gonna do about

it the two big disclosure reporting

systems out there is one cdp and the

second one is called eagle vatis those

are pretty much the ones that i've been

exposed to in consulting i'm not sure if

there are any more but definitely those

two are really the big ones so cdp is

one of the ones that i'm pretty sure a

lot of you guys will first get exposed

to when starting out your consulting

role or your corporate sustainability

job but basically it's this huge

reporting system about 14 000

organization responded to cdp in 2021

and so

you know that a lot of people are using

it so it might be one to jump on but

it's interesting because this one has

three different types of questionnaires

that a company can respond to one of

them is all about climate change the

second one is about water assessment and

the last one is about force impacts so

this one as well as the other one

they're very lengthy i'm not gonna lie

there is a huge learning curve to

learning all these technical skills to

be honest

but the best part is that they have the

guidance available out there meaning

they have all the questions that they

ask a company right at your fingertips

free to access and they also have the

scoring methodologies in which you can

you know take that scoring sheet and see

how companies are doing and maybe if you

wanted to taking a company's report and

doing an exercise with yourself to see

what types of scores that they got so

eaglevat is to date about 90 000

companies sit in their database where

investors and people can go ahead and

look at what they've got and this ranges

from 175 countries and then also 200

industries what makes this disclosure

system really unique is that unlike cdp

ecovatis focuses mainly on the

environmental management within a

company but then also needs to back

every answer up with documentation and

evidence when talking to a couple of

co-workers they did mention that when

completing ego virus it is a very

lengthy process

because you are reading through a lot of

documents to find that evidence that you

need so when you're helping these

companies complete this you're not only

trying to type in the answer but you're

also looking through all their policies

and regulations their documents that

could be hundreds of pages just to find

that answer to make sure that it's

evidenced so like cdp ecovatice's

guidances and resources are free online

for you to access and i think it's

really interesting because when i

started learning all of this even though

it was such a learning curve and i

literally was falling asleep all the

time because i'm just reading so much

i'm honestly not the biggest reader in

the world but

it's it's what gets you learning but

anyways it was interesting because i got

to learn what different companies were

doing in terms of their management for

environmental stuff um and what it is

that they're doing to strategize against

it and how they're engaging with other

people to try to reach their goals so

it's overall a really great learning

experience and how a business is overall

figuring this out

so reporting frameworks this one

definitely varies from the disclosure

reporting because disclosure reporting

is kind of like going online taking a

quiz and filling out all the answers to

get a score and what frameworks are are

that they have a guidance of how to

write a report so think about when you

were in elementary school and in order

to write a proper essay you needed to

have an intro um three paragraphs of

supporting details and then the

conclusion it's kind of similar to that

where these frameworks have guidances in

terms of what needs to go in a company's

sustainability report and so the most

common ones i've seen with this one is

gri

sasby and tcfd which is the one that's a

little bit newer on the end so the gri

stands for the global reporting

initiative and in 2020 about

52 of russell 1000 companies

had gri framework and their

sustainability report and if you're

unfamiliar with the russell 1000 it's

okay i'm a little bit unfamiliar with it

as well but all i know is it has to do

something with the stock market and this

represents basically more than 90

percent of all the stocks in the u.s

market and i guess i just bring that up

because since it does represent a huge

percentage of the u.s market

understanding that more than 50 percent

of these companies came out with

sustainability reports that had the gri

in there it must mean that this is only

going to be a more popular framework as

we keep going maybe might hit 100 one

day but

probably the number one that i associate

myself with when trying to learn about

frameworks so the gri standards they do

have different frameworks out there they

do have one called the universal

standard where pretty much any company

could go ahead and look at it and

incorporate that specific information

and their sustainability reports but

then they also do have some sector

specific ones that cater to your own

sector so you might be wanting to use

those if you do want to mention those

specific impacts that are related to

your company so sasby which also stands

for the sustainability accounting

standards board is really interesting

because in 2020 out of the russell 1000

companies about 39 of them did have the

sas b framework presented in their

reports but this is an interesting

framework because it really does allow

people to understand how a company

identifies manages and communicates

financially material sustainability

information to investors and so a lot of

that

is more for the investor space sas b

does have standard frameworks out there

for about 77 different industries within

11 different sectors so you can go on

their website find out which type of

company for example is in the certain

industry and sector and based on that

can go ahead and review what it is and

which type of information is needed and

the sustainability report that follows

sas b so tcfd means the task force on

climate related financial disclosures

yes it's a huge mouthful but this work

is really interesting because

it's really all about trying to

understand a company as it's getting

impacted by climate change and what the

heck they're gonna do to mitigate and

what they strategize to do

against climate change and this is

honestly a very huge booming area of

framework reporting i know the statistic

that i'm gonna give you in 2020 about

19ish percent of the russell 1000

companies did use this framework and the

reports and honestly this number is

probably already gone up in 2021 this

new report just didn't come out yet for

the 2021 data so sorry for the lag of

data but

it's interesting because you know

investors they totally want to know what

the heck is going to happen to their

assets if this certain scenario of

climate change is going to happen and so

i personally haven't worked on it but do

know some of my colleagues who've had

more and tough time with this area

trying to take all these climate

scenarios and trying to figure out the

financial damages that would happen to

these companies and i i totally know

this work is just going to be

increasing in the future and so if you

do have the chance go ahead take a look

at their website to familiarize yourself

more about what this is all about these

resources are out there for you guys to

use and unfortunately if you're not in

the industry right now it's kind of hard

to learn it if you're not doing it but

the good news is that if you do want to

learn how to do it all you have to do is

download a company like a big company's

sustainability report and

if you do search find and you put gri

for example you can see what type of

information that they're putting into

that sustainability report and you can

cross-reference that with the actual

framework that you can go ahead and

download yourself on the gerar

dri website and so

i know it's tough when you're trying to

learn everything by yourself but the

good news is that there's a way there's

a world there's a way all right so we've

hit the arena of assessments and if you

didn't quite know what that is by now

it's pretty much

assessing the environmental impact of a

company and so the ones that i'm

familiar with and have been exposed to

it's one all about greenhouse gases the

second one water impacts and assessment

and the last one is a materiality

assessment which i'll get into in just a

bit greenhouse gas accounting if you

haven't seen my other videos this is the

one i talk about all the time because i

was doing so much of this work in

consulting and

pretty much this is about quantifying a

company's greenhouse gas emissions by

collecting data in the company talking

to different departments gathering that

using this calculation method called the

u.s greenhouse gas protocol that's

that's one of the main common ones

that's used here in the us

and figuring out how much emissions is

coming from a company and through this

process you'll learn about the different

scopes and carbon emissions there's

scope one which is all about companies

direct carbon emissions the second one

is about the electricity that they're

consuming and then the third one is all

about everything coming upstream and

then downstream from the company um in

terms of emissions and so in their

greenhouse gas protocol

again

heck yeah but everything is probably

available but you can read about the

different types of emissions the

calculation method and i'm so sorry it

is a huge dense piece of

um art

i guess you can say and there is

definitely need to be some new version

that comes out at some point because the

last one

be almost 10 years old but

it is a working area and a starting

point at least for companies to

understand everything regarding um their

carbon impacts so the second type of

assessment is called the water risk

assessment and i personally haven't had

so much time with this but do you know

that it's about understanding how a

company consumes water where is it

consumed how is it discharged where's

the discharge and all that good

information and the tool that i do know

that some companies use is called the

wri aqueduct tool and this is probably

available it talks about more of how

it's calculated what the methodologies

are something that you guys can take the

time to learn yourselves um and what's

interesting

is that there are other water tools out

there that are used to calculate water

risk and what's interesting that i've

been told in this area of work is that

no one tool should be used alone to

calculate the waters of a company

every tool has its own strength in terms

of the calculations and so it would be

the person's job to understand which

tools are best at quantifying which um

variable and putting all of those pieces

the strength pieces together to create

the one and all water support and sorry

it's a little vague but hope that gives

some understanding and some starting

point to start that journey if that's

where you

feel like you should go so last but not

least we have the materiality assessment

and what this is is for a company to

understand what's material or what's

most important to a company in terms of

their environmental impacts that they

choose to focus on in the company and so

this is really important especially when

a company is newer on their

environmental journey because there's

always that huge question mark about

like what the heck are we supposed to

focus on there's so many things to focus

on which ones do we do now and first

and so in order to figure out this

question a materiality assessment is

done by someone within the company or a

consultant would help with this or

conduct it for the company and what

happens is that first a questionnaire

and a survey is made and an interview

question list is made because what will

happen is that this person would go

ahead and interview the important

stakeholders within the company and then

through that interview figuring out what

it is that they find to be of high

importance and so using the stakeholder

interviews understanding what it is that

they care about then using those results

together you can come out typically with

this matrix about like what it is that's

important to a company so i hope you

guys learned a thing or two about

different technical skills and this

corporate sustainability space and we'll

put a recap slide here just so you guys

can refresh your memory just a little

bit so yeah until next time guys

bye

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