Our sustainability strategy encompasses our most material ESG topics. It is developed, reviewed, approved and implemented through a robust governance structure with clear oversight from the Board, Audit Committee and Group Operating Committee.
Board members receive a report on ESG activities ahead of every Board meeting, as well as an annual in-depth presentation from our Chief Sustainability Officer that keeps them informed about the evolving global ESG context, our sustainability strategy and our ESG performance.
The Chief Financial Officer is executive sponsor of our overall ESG programme and the Company Secretary oversees the Group’s Sustainability function. They both sit on the Group Operating Committee, which receives regular updates on ESG performance, and on the Executive Risk Management Committee that oversees risk management with oversight from the Audit Committee.
Our ESG Steering Committee, comprising executive sponsors and workstream leaders and chaired by the Chief Financial Officer, meets six times a year to oversee our ESG agenda. Topics discussed this year included: social impact initiatives, communications and engagement, data security, climate-related items, and ESG policies (including updates to our Global Code of Conduct and Supplier Code of Conduct).
Our Chief Sustainability Officer is responsible for ensuring successful implementation of our ESG plans across all our workstreams, with support from a central sustainability team, a network of regional leads and regional business units.
The Compliance, Corporate Secretariat, Finance, Government Affairs, Investor Relations and Sustainability teams support monitoring of relevant market and regulatory developments and stakeholder needs, and their potential implications for our business and stakeholders, for discussion by the ESG Steering Committee.
The Finance team monitors and prepares for forthcoming ESG regulation in collaboration with the Sustainability team
We develop metrics and goals to support our sustainability strategy and measure progress (see below). The Finance team centrally collates ESG performance data for quarterly review by our ESG Steering Committee. Principles of data collection are set out centrally and submitted by each region for global reporting.
Our ESG data reporting methodologies are published on our online ESG reporting hub, together with detailed ESG performance data that we disclose annually.
See pages 77-78 of our Annual Report for more information regarding our governance approach to ESG.