In the midst of the current crisis, companies are also reshaping themselves for the new ESG agenda. For investors, a company’s score on ESG metrics is now one of the determinants that helps mould their decisions. ESG measurement seeks to score a company by the positive impact that businesses make on society – a broader concept of accountability than merely to shareholders. The demands of climate change are part of this, but broader social and political demands on business add to the mix. Investors – private equity, institutional and individuals – are now seen as one of the key actors in catalysing this change.
However laudable the motives, it all adds to the agenda items that boards now need to deal with. In one sense, none of it is new. Most corporate reputational crises in the past- and many on which Digitalis has advised – have emerged through perceived shortcomings in a company’s environmental, social or governance standards. For companies, building reputational resilience is often about getting the basics right – marrying what you say with what you do and ensuring that the behaviour of the company in terms of its environmental impact, its social values and the quality of its governance meets the standard the board requires of it. Boards need to feel that they can get behind the box-ticking and really assess a company’s performance.
This is not as easy as it sounds. Many companies have responded by trying to get the communications right first (lofty ambitions, stirring prose) before they are sure of their strategies. Allowing this gap to exist creates long term reputational risk. Corporate crises have often been about the gap between what a company says and what it does – on supply chains or environmental challenges (E), on policy or action on gender, on employment contracts, on race (S), or failings in board oversight, political connections, leadership, or remuneration (G).
For investors, knowing about a company’s policies in these areas is the easy part. Knowing more about how companies behave and speak about these issues in the real world, and how wider stakeholder groups (employees, communities, activists) regard them needs to be an essential component of an investment decision. A good reputation is largely based on perceptions that these issues are being well managed.
None of this is easy. In this new world, there is no consensus on what investors are looking for, nor on the relative weights being given to these multiple goals. Investors use language that is unclear about what they want – and the S in ESG is particularly ill-defined. ESG measurements (what works and makes impact) is notoriously difficult to define. There are big variances across markets. And there remains an abiding sense in the activist community that investors still see ESG as a bit of a marketing wheeze.
In reality, many of these issues, particularly on climate, are matters of legal compliance and as we approach 2030 the reach of the government to legislate changes is only going to increase. For many businesses, particularly in the heavy industrial and power sectors, the demands for new investment and innovation to help toward a carbon neutral world will be extensive. Under the S and G headings, public pressure for companies to be managing their people well, understanding their community responsibilities and governing their businesses fairly and ethically will only increase. A company that falls short on its ESG requirements or exposes a gap between what it says online and what it does, runs the risk of longer-term reputational damage and a destruction of value. For investors, it matters how the company communicates its policies and actions, and what the wider world thinks about them. It is not an area where investors can afford to be surprised.
Privacy Policy.
Revoke consent.
© Digitalis Media Ltd. Privacy Policy.
Digitalis
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email webrequests@digitalis.com
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to webrequests@digitalis.com