ESG Maturity – Beyond the Obvious
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Project Description
ESG Maturity is a Software as a Service (SaaS) with the goal to capture a snapshot of the overall ESG maturity status of the company, return a set of initiatives that companies can start implementing to improve its ESG maturity level, make a benchmark (how the company positions itself comparing to other companies in the same sector) and finally give companies the possibility to monitor strategic KPIs. All this is given through simplified frameworks that increase the quality of experience.
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Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
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Description of the project
Summary
ESG Maturity emerged from the development of a contextual family of algorithms, combining Data Science and Intelligence on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) metrics with different business models, sectors, and company sizes.
Using this algorithm, now integrated into a SaaS, allows companies to assess their ESG maturity level, make a benchmark, monitor strategic KPIs, and return a set of initiatives that companies can implement to improve its ESG maturity level.
This project is based on the concern that sustainability is a current trend, which emerged in 2005 in a partnership that was highlighted in the report “Who cares, wins”, and that the market is beginning to perceive it as one of the modern economy great drivers.
We provide an assessment so that companies can assess their ESG maturity level, which is carried out through data triangulation, based on 435 metrics that follow international standards protocols such as the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) and the SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board).
The evaluation result is provided in a simplified framework, which will allow the development of actions to be implemented as well as the evolution monitoring during these implementations.
Our SaaS also has the incorporation of an add-on, the IBM Watson, provided by the multinational IBM that strengthens its scalability.
In short, any company that uses ESG Maturity will be able to co-create innovative projects based on its needs and challenges in terms of Environment, Social and Governance, as well as define a roadmap of the changes it intends to implement, in its different dimensions: ideation, mechanics, human resources management, engagement and communication.
This project was created by C-MORE, a Portuguese start-up, established in September 2020, presenting itself as a strategy and business consultant whose main purpose is to translate sustainability into business.
Key objectives for sustainability
This project, based on advanced technology, aims to reinforce the view that artificial intelligence can increase the potential of people in organizations. In a topic as eminent and at the same time as global as sustainability, several important aspects for its evaluation have easily gone unnoticed and would continue to go unnoticed.
Therefore, companies that use the ESG Maturity solution will be assisted so that they can detect all relevant aspects of sustainability and how each one of them impacts their current and future strategy.
ESG Maturity is tool that want to help companies to measure the non-financial indicators and monitor its improvement, so, the main objective of this project is to change the mindset of companies so that they see sustainability as the way to grow their business, leading them to understand the circular economy cycle and sustainable business. Also, we want to build trends regarding to sustainability topic.
Specifically, ESG Maturity wants companies, as they realize the impact that sustainability has on their business, to have concrete data so that they can:
1) Know where to improve
2) Know where they are compared to their peers
For this reason, allowing the evaluation, implementing initiatives to improve its level of maturity, and monitoring of ESG criteria in the business and industrial environment, this project impact will lead to global improvements in terms of circularity, social, zero pollution, biodiversity, and climate.
It is a tool to facilitate and drive this change in businesses to become more sustainable, because we will assess biodiversity, energy, waste, water and effluents, emissions, and materials of all our clients.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
C-MORE, when developing ESG Maturity, was not only concerned with prioritizing functionality, but also to create a digital solution that was easy to interact, clear and that met the needs of the users.
Therefore, in this project development, one of the essential concerns was the user experience (UX), essential to ensure consumers good perception about the created platform, as well as to make any user feel good about using it. All development stages were focused on these ideals, from system design to coding and testing.
ESG Maturity is exemplary in user experience as it was built around the following goals:
1) Have a design that optimizes productivity: the dashboards were designed in a simple and pleasant way, with objective layouts and without too many visual elements that would confuse the user.
2) Intelligent personalization: the dashboards offer personalization capable of meeting what the user expects and needs, according to their profile, as well as simplifying the processes.
This development resulted in a product that features personalized and interactive dashboards, in which customers can visualize the algorithm outputs, allowing them to have a perception of their current ESG maturity and the actions that are required for it to evolve. The user has at disposal an intelligent questionnaire, customized for the sector and for the country in which operates, based on global standards.
The use of the IBM add-on in its Watson Assistant component allows ESG Maturity to have a support for the customer in the response to this questionnaire, improving their experience in completing it.
We can say that in terms of aesthetics, quality of experience and style, ESG Maturity has the intelligence to adapt to different sizes, sectors, and countries companies, from start-ups to listed companies.
Key objectives for inclusion
At C-MORE, diversity, equity, inclusion, and sense of belonging (DEIB) it is not a topic we need to consider, it is embedded in every single choice we do. We choose the best talent, we pay attention to whom we are communicating, and we aim for being better humans, dealing and leading a company with humanity standards. It is our natural behavior. It is not about strategy; it is about our mindset. It is the only way for us, to handle daily basis and profound challenges.
ESG Maturity was conceived as a tool that could be made available in three different types of packages, with the promise of making life easier for any company on the path to sustainability.
Therefore, the packages available are Assess, Discover and Plan, and any micro, small or medium-sized company, big company or public sector has the financial capacity to make the annual investment in this software, with the guarantee that they will have a return in the medium term, because “Who cares, wins”.
C-MORE is essentially specialized in the Social component, so the concern with inclusion, diversity, equality and belonging for all, accessibility and affordable prices are central values of this project. We follow in all our actions the UN quote "Leave no one behind".
And the project itself is focused on expanding these values in the business and industrial context, since ESG guarantees Social concern, which directly reflects them, but with the measurement and consolidation in its subcategories, it also positively impacts Environment and Governance.
Every company, regardless of its size fits our customer profile as we have a different range of prices that varies accordingly to the size our client (based on number of employees or sales). We are accessible to every company, that wants to be more sustainable. The goal of our software is to be accessible, useful and user friendly.
Results in relation to category
The category we apply for with ESG Maturity is shaping a circular industrial ecosystem and supporting life cycle thinking.
For us, it is obvious that our software is a sustainable, inclusive example, concerned with the user experience, which contributes to the business/industrial sector transformation, helping to identify and implement more sustainable practices with a circularity spirit, considering Social aspects as well as Environmental and Governance aspects.
Our product, as already mentioned, is a proprietary family of algorithms that combines Data Science and ESG Intelligence, capable of measuring, evaluating, understanding, and anticipating performance, so it is a tool that facilitates the performance (self) evaluation in these materials, on various types of goods and services.
One of our differentiating factors is the use of data intelligence in ESG as a catalyst for sustainable and prosperous companies, so we consider our SaaS as a new model that brings clear benefits in terms of sustainability and quality of life for all.
In addition, we also believe that the best ESG practices in companies, in addition to minimizing risks, have the potential to generate above-average financial profitability. Associated with the companies from different sectors transformation that we seek to encourage, we will contribute also for the overall socio-economic development of each region in which these companies have an impact.
These results and impacts are obtained by using ESG Maturity, which will return to our customers an ESG report with the identification of their ESG maturity level (global and by subcategory), with at least 5 priority initiatives to increase that level and benchmarking. The software will also allow the monitoring and analysis of sustainability indicators and the 5 main United Nations sustainable development goals that companies are or may consider.
How Citizens benefit
C-MORE is a recently born start-up that provides strategic consulting services in the sustainability field with the goal to translate sustainability into business. It was with the beginning of our journey in this area that the team identified the great difficulties that all companies that were interested in our services felt, namely, to understand where they could start integrating ESG concepts into their activities.
For all these companies, which leads us to believe that it still is a global issue in the business and industrial context, the lack of knowledge about sustainability and circular economy is very high. Therefore, ESG Maturity arises exactly in this participatory process that involved several companies, which mobilized transdisciplinary approaches, and that made us want to develop a response to this need, in a language directed to the business. This was the way that our simple and practical product that effectively presents solutions emerged.
This involvement also made us develop our method of working with ESG Maturity, which always starts with personalized interviews for the business/industrial sector, country, and organization size, based on our 435 metrics evaluated and validated and inspired by GRI, SASB, UN SDG and GIIN methodologies. One of the biggest benefits that ESG Maturity users feel with this performance is the fact that they have a product based on a questionnaire and metrics fully adapted to their size, sector, and country.
We also had the participation of IBM, which also became our partner, and which helped our project, demonstrating the benefits that the inclusion of its add-on would have in our software to reinforce the solution for these market needs. This add-on of IBM allows ESG Maturity to scale very fast adding the Watson portfolio features to our product.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
ESG Maturity presents itself as a totally innovative platform, based on a simple concept: the evaluation of each company based on 435 metrics that follow strict international protocols. Based on this assessment, business leaders have access to customized and simplified dashboards, in which they will ensure the company’s development over time regarding ESG topics.
C-MORE team will follow this path closely, to be able to provide the best support in achieving the defined objectives (which will be in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals).
What distinguishes our software is that from a single platform, which will be customized for different companies/industries, it is possible to deliver the project implementation and management, the stakeholders management, the monitoring of impact metrics and the impact report in ESG realization.
In addition, our software also has the following innovations:
1) Help users in completing the ESG questionnaire through a conversational interface – Watson Assistant;
2) Monitoring financial and strategic performance with ESG criteria;
3) Reporting, measuring, and evaluating the company's sustainability;
4) Collection and processing of unstructured information from multiple sources such as CRM, SAP, websites, and other reports;
5) It has an holistic approach and aims to consolidate reference methodologies;
6) Performs granular analysis of different categories and mapping of initiatives;
7) It is user friendly and customized to the customer.
For this reason, C-MORE believes that this project will be an unavoidable reference in the market, as it is a solution that brings transparency and returns a set of initiatives that can be implemented by the organization to improve its ESG maturity level.
We translate sustainability into business!
Learning transferred to other parties
ESG Maturity demonstrates to its stakeholders and potential new stakeholders that it is an impact-focused software, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and based on international best practices.
Furthermore, all the projects developed so far translate sustainability into business, having been based on a people-to-people approach in which we materialize in the present the future of sustainability tools. Moreover, with the success of the 47 ESG Maturity projects that C-MORE has already implemented, we have been able to demonstrate tangible, quantifiable, and comparable impact materialization, as well as the innovative factors of our software.
The impact of ESG Maturity has generated many needs in companies in terms of their human resources training in the areas of diversity, inclusion, equity, and ethics, as well as in the fundamentals of sustainability and circular economy, so we are fully convinced that these results can bring value at the level of educational institutions, so that they can renew themselves in their programmatic contents to respond to this learning in the future.
In the same way, at C-MORE we believe that the amount of data obtained by this software, from the most varied economic sectors, can be used at a research level.
Furthermore, the results obtained by our software implementation at a business/industrial level will generate trends, which will be able to respond to one of the great challenges of the sustainability sector, which is the fact that currently there are no minimum or maximum values for each indicator per category of the ESG.
