ESG Board Committees, Part II: Five Steps to Achieve an Effective ESG Board Committee

This article outlines five steps that companies should consider in order to achieve an effective Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) board committee. ESG is taking the world by storm. However, while ESG may seem like a relatively new concept, the reality is that non-financial risks and opportunities, and board governance over those matters, have existed for a long time, even before the term "ESG" was first coined back in 2005. However, what is new is that ESG creates a series of lenses through which companies can assess whether, and to what degree, they need to exhibit greater risk-creativity and strategic creativity. Once a company decides that it is time expand the scope of its board oversight to include various ESG matters that have not been explicitly included previously, there are five matters that the company should consider in order to focus the board's attention on what matters most, which include to: