Regardless of how you stand on the subject and what opinion you have formed so far; you will not be able to avoid this topic!
ESG - short for Environment, Social, Governance, expresses expectations of companies about their environmental and social behavior, as well as compliance with the laws in the countries where the company operates. The term ESG has replaced CSR in the discussion. This puts more emphasis on the environmental side and governance. At the same time, the core, corporate responsibility, is pushed into the background with the term ESG.
Companies are required to report on the extent to which they meet expectations. However, neither expectations nor reporting requirements are regulated in one place and uniformly.
In addition to legal standards, the expectations of various stakeholders, from investors and banks to politicians and the public, customers and suppliers, and employees in particular, build up pressure on companies.
- How differently is ESG already affecting companies today?
- What developments do companies need to prepare for?
- Why does ESG need to be integrated into management?
How differently is ESG already affecting companies today?
For some companies, e.g. capital market-oriented companies, there is already an obligation to report on these topics in a comprehensible and mandatory manner, e.g. in the non-financial statement.
Other companies report on their position and a corresponding rating by rating agencies to achieve more favorable conditions on the capital market or to find investors. We have already seen voluntary commitments to CO2 neutrality. Banks are increasingly starting to ask about the attitude of borrowers, as credit institutions in turn must report on their investment portfolio. Still other companies are facing increased inquiries about their own stance in the human resources market.
Finally, the EU funds in the Green Deal and the discussions about the assessment of nuclear and gas power plants as EU taxonomy compliant should have made it clear to every entrepreneur and manager that something has started to move here that questions our previous ways of acting.
What developments do companies need to prepare for?
The mechanism of politics and public administration is relatively simple to describe. Companies are supposed to report in ever greater detail on their environmental behavior, social conduct, and compliance with the law so that capital providers can "invest in good companies." What is meant by good has long depended on the assessment of rating agencies, which have been much more divergent than we have been used to with financial ratings. The EU taxonomy, however, tries to draw the lines in a much more comprehensible and "scientific" way, and one can vividly imagine the lobbyist tug-of-war. In the end, however, there are criteria that separate good from bad.
If one follows the current discussions, it is also to be expected that the specifications, transparency requirements and expectations will be much more detailed for all three pillars of the ESG. As an example, the Commission's website suggests that the measures will not meet the 2050 CO2 target. The introduction of a social taxonomy has already been discussed.
The extensive disclosure of the EU taxonomy alone, the transparency requirements from the Supply Chain Act and the discussion of standards in the newly founded International Sustainability Standards Board, the counterpart to the IASB, show a clear direction: Companies need to disclose significantly more information on all aspects of ESG and set binding targets to meet responsibility.
Why does ESG need to be integrated into management?
Anyone who reports publicly on issues and is expected to set goals knows that organizations need to be focused on these goals in management to be able to report on the achievement of the goals, on the improvement of the set-up in the following year.
This, and hopefully the realization that business as usual will not work, raises the question of how ESG can be integrated into management and how business models can be further developed to make the transformation of our economy successful for the good of all of us.
4C GROUP has always taken a holistic approach to corporate management, in which all instruments are considered with their effects in terms of effectiveness on objectives. Therefore, ESG must be consistently integrated from the strategy to the operational management systems.
Our core thesis is that ESG will eventually become such an integral part of all management processes that it can no longer be separated. "The purpose of business is to profitably solve problems of people and planet, and not profit from causing problems" (*British Academy). Therefore, we want to provide you with important impulses, basic information, and classifications via this platform.
Webcast - What you should know about ESG
4C expert Stephan Grunwald as a guest on Wolters Kluwer's CPM FactCast (CCH Tagetik product division)
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What does ESG mean for corporate governance? This question was addressed by 4C Senior Partner Stephan Grunwald together with other experts in Wolters Kluwer's CPM FactCast (CCH Tagetik product area).
They discussed the following topics, among others:
- What does ESG mean and for whom is it relevant?
- What exactly do companies need to deliver and by when?
- To what extent is ESG an auditing topic?
- How does ESG affect employees in the company?
- And many more
Would you like to learn more about ESG? Then you can find the recorded webcast here!
You can find more information on the topic here in the corresponding blog article: ESG - Why no company will be able to avoid it in future!
Our broschures for ESG
Whitepaper CSR Reporting, Study and thesis paper CSR Reporting
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CSR Reporting - legal duty and marketing dumb or meaningful control?
Since 2014, certain companies have been obliged to publish non-financial information on corporate social responsibility. We provide an overview of CSR reporting:
- Challenges in CSR Reporting
- Implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting
- Benefit of CSR Reporting
Study and thesis paper CSR Reporting
- Motivation of the study
- Experience in the implementation of CSR reporting
- Summary: These are the issues that will need to be addressed
4C GROUP AG | E-Booklet Diversity, a real lever for top performance in a volatile world!
- Sustainability, CSR, Diversity - What is it all about?
- Can diversity have a business case?
- How can diversity be classified? - A basic classification in HR work
- A framework for leveraging the opportunities of diversity
- The roadmap
Our expert for ESG
Get in touch with us through Xing or LinkedIn
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Stephan Grunwald
Master of Economics and Business Administration
For Stephan Grunwald, consulting is an entrepreneurial activity with many variations; in various industries, for companies of different sizes, in different management structures. Yet always with the same sense of entrepreneurship. The prerequisite for all this is a sound and broadly diversified foundation in business administration. For him, however, the consistent realization of a concept is the ultimate entrepreneurial aspect of consulting differentiating 4C GROUP from its competition.
His focus lies in the CFO Office covering all aspects of decision making and controlling, reporting & planning, cost management, new role of finance (Industry 4.0), HR digitization and innovation management.
He has extensive experience in various industries and consulting of owner-managed and family led companies.

Stephan Grunwald
Master of Economics and Business Administration
For Stephan Grunwald, consulting is an entrepreneurial activity with many variations; in various industries, for companies of different sizes, in different management structures. Yet always with the same sense of entrepreneurship. The prerequisite for all this is a sound and broadly diversified foundation in business administration. For him, however, the consistent realization of a concept is the ultimate entrepreneurial aspect of consulting differentiating 4C GROUP from its competition.
His focus lies in the CFO Office covering all aspects of decision making and controlling, reporting & planning, cost management, new role of finance (Industry 4.0), HR digitization and innovation management.
He has extensive experience in various industries and consulting of owner-managed and family led companies.