Argüden Governance Academy, focusing on increasing the quality of governance at every level, published a new important report. The report titled “Sustainability Governance Scorecard” was presented to an international audience at the IIRC's Global Conference in London on 17 May 2019.
Today, sustainability is no longer an optional, “nice to have” issue for companies, but a crucial element for preparing for the future. Thus, there is an increasing number of companies, both public and private, committing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With an aim to motivate the business world to act for a more sustainable future, Argüden Governance Academy presented a new impact-research, Sustainability Governance Scorecard ©, in order to identify how the best companies conduct their sustainability efforts.
The Sustainability Governance Scorecard © is designed as to have an impact on a global level, covering 150 leading public companies trading at key stock exchanges which are signatories of Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative. The scope of the analysis is limited with the companies who are included in the sustainability indices of stock exchanges in China, Germany, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
The Scoring is based on a unique approach: Breadth & Depth
The Sustainability Governance Scorecard ©, which is an impact-research conducted to help improve the state of the world by speeding up learning from peers, is designed to be utilized as an improvement tool for better governance of sustainability issues. The Sustainability Governance Scorecard Model puts the quality of governance systems, comprehensiveness of implementation, and transparency of reporting at the heart of sustainability efforts. However, it is not intended to provide an assessment of the sustainability performance of the companies, but only the governance of sustainability efforts.
In line with this perspective, the research suggests that there are some criteria, which companies should adopt in order to maintain the sustainability climate in the company. The Scorecard has measured the existence of the sustainability climate as a Breadth Score of the company (What the companies are doing).
Furthermore, the research states that the sustainability governance climate could be deployed and deepened within the company, because this will lead the company to internalize the essence of the sustainability governance. Therefore, the Sustainability Governance Scorecard also takes into consideration the Depth of the sustainability governance (How the companies are doing).
Argüden Governance Academy expects that this Scorecard Model will provide an opportunity for benchmarking and serve as a guideline for creating effective sustainability governance mechanisms, learning from peers and thereby contributing to deployment of good practices on sustainability.
Results of the Research
The Sustainability Governance Scorecard ©, which analyzes publicly available data through a ‘governance lens’, has two key conclusions:
1) There is significant room for improvement in the effectiveness of execution and accountability of the sustainability programs of even the leading companies, let alone the large number of enterprises all around the world.
2) There is extensive peer-to-peer learning opportunities based on good practices shared by the Global Sustainability Leaders on how they approach their sustainability efforts.
The Scorecard can be found online at www.sgscorecard.argudenacademy.org. Argüden Governance Academy suggests that the Sustainability Governance Scorecard and its results could be utilized by many stakeholders including boards and managements of companies, investors, regulators, civil society organizations, academia, and the representatives of the press for peer learning, identifying good examples, improving accountability and investment decisions
The Scorecard attracts international attention
Argüden Governance Academy was invited to the IIRC's Global Conference 2019 that was organized on 16th-17th May in London, UK. The Academy, which is the first Turkish institution and one of the first 10 NGOs in the world to prepare an Integrated Report, shared their Integrated Reporting Journey.
During this event, Argüden Governance Academy has also launched the Sustainability Governance Scorecard ©. The results of the Sustainability Governance Scorecard © attracted the attention of global thought leaders on integrated thinking and good governance.
"I am happy to be voluntary ambassador of SG Scorecard © which is a very important piece of work."
Prof. Mervyn King, IIRC - Chair Emeritus
Sustainability Governance Scorecard © Project Team:
Dr. Yılmaz Argüden
Dr. Fatma Öğücü Şen
Gizem Argüden
Kübra Koldemir
Pınar Ilgaz
Dr. Erkin Erimez
Çağhan Karanberk
Related People
