Tag: ESG

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Compliance Week Conference Podcast

Matt Friedman on The Human Factor of ESG

In this episode of the Compliance Week 2022 Preview Podcasts series, Matt will discuss some of his presentation at Compliance Week 2022, “The Human Factor of ESG.” Some of the issues he will discuss in this podcast, and his presentation are:

  •  The state of modern slavery and examining the impact on the global supply chain.
  • Working to disrupt the human slavery trade.
  • The ways that compliance professionals can remain vigilant within the human rights sector.

I hope you can join me at Compliance Week 2022. This year’s event will be May 16-18 at the JW Marriott in Washington DC. The line-up of this year’s event is simply first-rate, with some of the top ethics and compliance practitioners around.

Gain insights and make connections at the industry’s premier cross-industry national compliance event offering knowledge-packed, accredited sessions and take-home advice from the most influential leaders in the compliance community. Back for its 17th year, compliance, ethics, legal, and audit professionals will gather face-to-face to benchmark best practices and gain the latest tactics and strategies to enhance compliance programs and many others to:

  • Network with your peers, including C-suite executives, legal professionals, HR leaders, and ethics and compliance visionaries.
  • Hear from 75+ respected cross-industry practitioners who are CEOs, CCOs, regulators, federal officials, and practitioners to help inform and shape the strategic direction of your enterprise risk management program.
  • Hear directly from the two SEC Commissioners, gain insights into the agency’s enforcement areas, and walk away with guidance on remaining compliant within emerging areas such as ESG disclosure, third-party risk management, cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, and more.
  • Bring actionable takeaways back to your program from various session types, including ESG, Human Trafficking, Board obligations, and many others, to listen to, learn and share.
  • Compliance Week aims to arm you with information, strategy, and tactics to transform your organization and your career by connecting ethics to business performance through process augmentation and data visualization.

I hope you can join me at the event. For information on the event, click here. As an extra benefit to listeners of this podcast, Compliance Week is offering a $200 discount on the registration price, and enter discount code TFLAW $200 OFF.

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The ESG Compliance Podcast

ESG Supply Chain Compliance with Travis Miller and Jared Connors


Assent Compliance’s Travis Miller and Jared Connors join us as they discuss their work in conflict minerals supply chains, how ESG compliance plays a role, what companies should do to interpret data and increase efficiency and recovery, and the future of risk management.
▶️ ESG Supply Chain Compliance with Travis Miller and Jared Connors:
Key points discussed in the episode:
✔️ Companies are starting to realize the significance of making a commitment to ESG through responsible sourcing.
✔️ Outsourcing usually occurs in the most regulated, most dangerous, and least profitable businesses.
✔️ Business continuity planning is crucial in risk management, more flexible disaster response, and efficient operations. Aside from environmental and social, risk is also a financial concern.
✔️ The most important letter of ESG is P – product, people, and policies. Middle-aged workers are the most vulnerable and highly targeted in inhumane business practices and violations.
✔️ Dig deeper into organizations and understand their commitments to mitigate and prepare for risk.
✔️ Non-financial risks are pressuring investor disclosures.
✔️ ESG is reorienting the global market and the world. Large-scale environmental and social scandals ruin reputation and business.
✔️ Educating the supply chain contributes to overall company efficiency and risk management.
✔️ Compliance toolkits should be utilized even outside the company. The legal space has become the ideal practice ground for compliance.
✔️ Companies should be proactive in detecting supply chain issues internally.
✔️ Translate technical speak to an executive language to gain interest from the C-level suite.
✔️ Assess supply chain maturity.
✔️Companies are now compelled to make a change due to their global influence. Consumers’ cries for environmental and social accountability are now heard – all thanks to social media.
Jared Connors is a senior subject matter expert on Corporate Social Responsibility at Assent Compliance, the worlds’ leader in supply chain data management.
His expertise involves achieving ESG goals by understanding and mitigating potential supply chain risk, the transition from CSR to ESG, how companies can take a holistic approach to ESG, and ESG-related regulations, such as those pertaining to human trafficking and slavery, conflict minerals, and anti-bribery, anti-corruption.
Travis Miller is General Counsel at Assent Compliance. He manages Assent’s worldwide legal activities, advises the Board of Directors on legal matters, and oversees corporate compliance, governance initiatives, and other commercial transactions. Before coming to Assent, he served in various high-level counsel positions with companies such as Microchip Technology, Foresite Group, and St. Jude Medical.
Resources
Assent Compliance on Twitter
Assent Compliance on LinkedIn
Jared on Linkedin
Travis Miller on Linkedin
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Do you have a podcast (or do you want to)? Join the only network dedicated to compliance, risk management, and business ethics, the Compliance Podcast Network. For more information, contact Tom Fox at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

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The ESG Report

Proposed SEC Rules on Reporting Climate Risk Disclosure with Matt Kelly


 
Matt Kelly and Tom Fox take a look at the recent rule proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding climate management risk and ESG.
 

 
Climate Change Risk Disclosure 
Finally, there’s a proposed rule from the SEC to require climate change risk disclosure. Should this rule be implemented, there are a few categories of data that would be required of companies, such as the impact of climate-related events, greenhouse gas emissions, and any transition activities to a net-zero future. For example, if it is possible to tie specific financial losses to specific climate risk events, this information should be included in the 10K/10Q. 
In agreement with Jonathan Armstrong, Matt says, “If you’re telling the public, ‘We’re gonna be net-zero by 2035!’ you’re going to have to back that up with real data.”
 
Compliance Questions Associated with This Proposal  
Matt discusses some of the questions that compliance professionals tend to raise in relation to this proposed rule, including: 

  1. Would greenhouse gas emissions disclosures be subject to internal control? 
  2. How would the audit requirement for greenhouse gas emissions work? 
  3. How would these climate risk disclosures in the 10K/10Q compare to what is published in corporate sustainability reports? 

 
Aspirational or Actionable? 
With all the promises of net-zero, a regulator to watch out for is the Federal Trade Commission; they have been known to crack down on corporations who make claims of being ‘great and green’ without making any substantive moves. Matt comments on the FTC’s actions, stating, “It’s not easy being green, but it’s not easy to simply say you’re green, either.”
 
RESOURCES 
Tom Fox’s email
Matt Kelly | LinkedIn | Twitter
 

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The Hill Country Podcast

Harry Anthony on Uranium Mining in Texas


Welcome to The Hill Country Podcast. The Texas Hill Country is one of the most beautiful places on earth. In this podcast, recent Hill Country resident Tom Fox visits the people and organizations that make this a unique area of Texas. Join Tom as he explores the people, places, and activities of the Texas Hill Country.  In this episode, I visit Harry Anthony, a retired business executive who talks about uranium mining in the state of Texas. Some of the highlights include:

  • What is uranium mining, and how is it done in Texas?
  • How is uranium used?
  • How and why did the US uranium mining market drop off?
  • How have recent international events demonstrated the need for a robust US uranium mining industry?
  • Why is uranium mining a national security issue?
  • How can the US government begin to change and move from reactive to proactive? What should the industry do?
  • Why is uranium a key spoken in ESG?
Categories
Daily Compliance News

April 20, 2022 the Digital Transformation Edition


In today’s edition of Daily Compliance News:
·      Advocating for a corp digital transformation. (WSJ)
·      Tools and resources to fight corruption. (Council of Europe)
·      Indonesia announces investigation into corruption around palm oil industry.  (Reuters)
·      Is there a Scope 3 in your future?  (Reuters)

Categories
The ESG Compliance Podcast

The ESG Standards with Thomas Fox & Erika Peters


Gatekeepers of third parties have to handle evolving new questions that ensure ESG initiatives align with the company’s values, providing for the welfare of the employees, communities, and the environment. Erika Peters, Managing Director and Global Head of Third Party and Supply Chain Risk management at Exiger, chats with Thomas Fox on The ESG Compliance Podcast on the importance of these third parties as an extension of the company and how to hold them accountable.
Watch ▶️ The ESG Standards with Thomas Fox & Erika Peters
✔️ Admittingly, the risk is all around a company’s entire ecosystem. Peters says that no third party is more critical and may have a higher risk than another. From an ESG perspective, companies must look at all parties involved that can potentially hurt their brand and reputation.
✔️ On an ESG framework that doesn’t exist. Many companies around ESG have been asking for government guidance, regulation, or other government signals on standards they should follow. The first step is to see what they already have and the existing data and bring it to one place.
✔️ Technology is the only way to go in 2022 to assess the criticality of a third party. Many companies are still not using technology to bring data together to map their supply chain and then understand the effects of the inherent downstream risks.
✔️ Transparency is vital for supply chain and third-party risk management solutions provider Exiger. With the launch of the platform Supply Chain Explorer, companies can instantly look into any entity in the world’s supply chain.
✔️ Supply chain and third parties are more than just your direct counterparties. Tom Fox and Erika Peters explore how companies should know third parties more than simply their direct counterparties and have direct contact with the fourth, fifth, and perhaps even sixth party down the line.
✔️ Erika cites how leadership is an important component of everything in ESG. More information is necessary for those companies in terms of biographical information to start layering on the risk question and set the framework for creating that compliance picture.
Erika Peters is the Managing Director and Global Head of Third Party and Supply Chain Risk management at Exiger. Exiger is the global leader in AI-powered supply chain and third-party risk management solutions. Visit https://www.exiger.com/ and get the early free trial of Supply Chain Explorer in May 2022.
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Do you have a podcast (or do you want to)? Join the only network dedicated to compliance, risk management, and business ethics, the Compliance Podcast Network. For more information, contact Tom Fox at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

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The ESG Report

Greenwashing or Getting in Trouble While Trying to Do Good with Jonathan Armstrong


 
Jonathan Armstrong has been looking at ESG from a unique angle for quite some time. In this episode of the ESG Report, he and Tom Fox are taking a look at greenwashing, and how trying to do good can end badly.  
 

 
The Issue of Greenwashing 
One area where people can do wrong by trying to do good is combining the energy crisis with ESG. Corporations attempt to get with the ESG program by talking about carbon neutrality or the use of renewable power, but many have gone beyond simply saying ‘We are carbon neutral!’ to sound more like ‘We’re doing what’s best for the planet!’ Making these claims potentially subject your company to fair trading law across Europe, and can lead to fines or even prison in extreme cases, if the statement cannot be backed up. 
 
The Dark Side 
The production of solar panels, wind turbines, and biofuels are associated with a number of issues, including forced labor, armed conflict, corruption, ecosystem destruction, and allegations of fraud and money laundering. Jonathan discusses all of these, making it clear that, “We shouldn’t necessarily assume green is good.”
 
Responses of the EU & UK 
The biggest response has come from the UK parliament, which have had a specific inquiry into supply chains and proposals for new legislation, including a toughening of the UK Modern Slavery Act. Jonathan’s advice is to provide complete due diligence on who is selling the goods, and where they are coming from, to ensure a good ESG program. “A corporation does not have a good ESG program if one of its first acts is being prosecuted for abuses involved in alternative fuel source production,” he tells listeners.
 
RESOURCES 
Tom Fox’s email
Jonathan Armstrong | LinkedIn | Twitter
 

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The ESG Compliance Podcast

The Meta Contract and Compliance in Governance with David Simon


Attorney David Simon joins us to share his expertise on the essence of G in ESG, the responsibilities of compliance practitioners, how lawyers are the perfect fit for ESG, and the importance of practicing authenticity and integrity in compliance.
▶️ The Meta Contract and Compliance in Governance with David Simon:
Key points discussed in the episode:
✔️ David Simon defines the meta contract as taught by Professor Alan Morrison in his Governance and Ethics course at Oxford University.
✔️ Procedures and internal controls should be given attention in the ESG space.
✔️ The meta contract is the corporation’s word. It can also be the organization’s brand, culture, and purpose for existing. It embodies what your business is all about.
✔️ Integrity and authenticity are the two key concepts companies must adhere to when applying ESG. Businesses should be real with their values and rank their stakeholders accordingly.
✔️ The FCPA has become a “one-stop-shop” for compliance, providing frameworks and roadmaps. But for any advances to happen, companies must adjust their programs focusing on their individual business risks.
✔️ Compliance professionals and lawyers shine in ESG roles. Their skillset suits the responsibility of reporting back to the C-levels. They can take meta contracts and enforce them consistently through accurate data tracking and providing feedback.
✔️ The meta contract is an implicit representation of how companies follow legislation. Breaking it is a violation of trust among consumers and their community.
David W. Simon is a litigation attorney who devotes much of his practice to helping corporate clients avoid and manage crises that potentially give rise to government enforcement actions. He provides compliance advice, conducts internal investigations, defends companies against enforcement actions, and represents companies in litigation.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is a principal focus of Mr. Simon’s practice. He also has extensive experience representing clients in antitrust matters and in defending False Claims Act investigations and litigation.
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Do you have a podcast (or do you want to)? Join the only network dedicated to compliance, risk management, and business ethics, the Compliance Podcast Network. For more information, contact Tom Fox at tfox@tfoxlaw.com.

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The ESG Report

The Business Case for DEI with Kuma Roberts


 
The need for diversity, equity, and inclusion is obvious, but what does that mean from a corporate perspective? Tom Fox sits down with Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Kuma Roberts for a conversation about DEI in organizations and the all-round benefits that these values offer. 
 

 
The Business Advantages of DEI 
“Companies absolutely understand the business case for diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Kuma states, citing the rise in the CEO Action Network, as well as smaller chambers of commerce pushing to join the fight, as well. She believes that the corporate world has transitioned from it being the right thing to do, to being the smart and most profitable thing to do. 
Defining DEI
Everyone understands diversity; it’s all the ways we differ. Equity refers to the access and opportunity for people who have been most disadvantaged. For Kuma, inclusion is when a variety of people have voice, power, and decision-making authority. 
DEI Insurance Policy 
We think of safety in organizations as something inherent and traditional. When considering diversity and inclusion as part of your organization’s culture, you create an insurance policy that ensures you will remain relevant, valuable, and sustainable for years to come. 
Utilizing Soft Skills 
Kuma gives a lot of credit to soft skills in her personal life. She speaks, from a corporate perspective, about the necessity of actively working with students to help them to understand important skills that will benefit them later on in the world of work. 
The Significance of Data 
When seeking out inequities across their communities, Kuma’s clients make use of various sources to aid them in understanding where there’s inequity, and how their organization can make an impact. ‘Learn to leverage data as a flashlight,’ is a phrase she loves, preferring to highlight areas where there are opportunities for improvement, rather than using data as a way to punish or vilify. 
RESOURCES 
Tom Fox’s email
Kuma Roberts | LinkedIn | Twitter 
 

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Everything Compliance

Episode 97-the ESG Edition


Welcome to the only roundtable podcast in compliance. The entire gang was also recently honored by W3 as a top talk show in podcasting. In this episode, we have the quartet of Jay Rosen, Jonathan Armstrong, Karen Woody and Matt Kelly. We conclude with our fan favorite Shout Outs and Rants.

1. Jay Rosen discusses the connection an ethics and compliance corporate culture survey and an ESG culture survey. Rosen also discusses what companies can do to improve overall ESG culture.  Rosen rants the Academy of Motion Picture snubbing of the Director of Dune for Best Director when the picture won 6 other Oscars.

2. Matt Kelly takes a deep dive into the SEC proposed rules on climate risk disclosure and their impact on the compliance profession.  Kelly shouts out to the Golden Raspberry Foundation, who award the ‘Razzie’s’ for withdrawing their previously created award of Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a Bruce Willis movie after the actor retired due to Aphasia.

3. Jonathan Armstrong looks at greenwashing and how companies which are trying to do the right thing often get in trouble by doing it the wrong way. Armstrong shouts out to Tina Turner for advancing the cause of GDPR and explaining once and for all time ‘what’s love got to do with it.’

4. Karen Woody explains the SEC rule making process and how it can be challenged and responds to SEC Commissioner Peirce’s dissent to the proposed rules. Woody shouts out to the magic of Harry Potter World in Orlando have what she described as ‘awesome’ roller coaster rides, well worth the 3-hour wait in line.

5. Tom Fox rants Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for their incompetent response to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars and reminds us that workplace violence is never acceptable. 

The members of the Everything Compliance are:
•       Jay Rosen– Jay is Vice President, Business Development Corporate Monitoring at Affiliated Monitors. Rosen can be reached at JRosen@affiliatedmonitors.com
•       Karen Woody – One of the top academic experts on the SEC. Woody can be reached at kwoody@wlu.edu
•       Matt Kelly – Founder and CEO of Radical Compliance. Kelly can be reached at mkelly@radicalcompliance.com
•       Jonathan Armstrong –is our UK colleague, who is an experienced data privacy/data protection lawyer with Cordery in London. Armstrong can be reached at jonathan.armstrong@corderycompliance.com
•       Jonathan Marks is Partner, Firm Practice Leader – Global Forensic, Compliance & Integrity Services at Baker Tilly. Marks can be reached at jonathan.marks@bakertilly.com
The host and producer, ranter (and sometime panelist) of Everything Compliance is Tom Fox the Voice of Compliance. He can be reached at tfox@tfoxlaw.com. Everything Compliance is a part of the Compliance Podcast Network.