By Mat Bartkowiak, VP of Corporate Responsibility and Development, Nelson-Jameson
If you’re in a position where you have been tasked with launching a formal environmental, social, and governance (ESG) program at your food company, it can be remarkably overwhelming. If you don’t have experience working in the area, it can feel like a deluge of acronyms, a chorus of demands, and a cacophony of voices asking for different things. The reality is that creating a meaningful and impactful program is a lot of work, as well as an investment in time and resources. However, you’ll likely also find that it is work that will drive an immense sense of possibility, passion, and purpose to make meaningful change that benefits your community, your employees, the environment, and your bottom line. People want to do business with companies they trust and that they enjoy doing business with (the same goes for employees!); ESG is a great way to further build that with all kinds of stakeholders.
The following are initial steps to consider for helping the journey ahead, as well as considerations to keep coming back to throughout. ESG programs are not simply policies with boxes to check but instead are cultures to build and maintain. Embracing transparency and authenticity in your process will help establish a program that stakeholders can invest in and trust. That means being willing to pursue, grow, and also learn from your mistakes in the process.
