ESG is a core piece of the value corporate counsel can bring to a business, writes Andrew McLaughlin
As more and more Canadian in-house counsel lead organizations on their ESG journeys through the Covid-era, we should be comparing travel notes, while helping others get out of the starting gates.
In 2020, I published the article “An ESG Roadmap for In-House Counsel” as we embarked on formalizing our ESG Roadmap at Major Drilling. In that piece, I made the case for legal departments to lead on this increasingly critical aspect of an organization’s core operations. As we’re now a year into this journey, it’s a useful waypoint to reflect on how far we’ve come and to contemplate the long journey ahead.
Embarking on this journey in the midst of a global pandemic means we’ve had to quickly shift to the fast lane - as the role of the corporation has come under deeper focus (e.g., employee safety, diversity and fair wages). Against this backdrop, the growing momentum of the ESG movement that has pervaded the public markets in recent years has reached a tipping point – and has now entered the mainstream. Public companies that previously saw embedding ESG and sustainability practices into their business as a “nice to have” are increasingly realizing it’s a “must have,” as their customers, investors and supply chains are demanding it—at the risk of putting their money elsewhere. For us, an investor call or pitch to a potential client without an ESG-angle would be almost unheard of in 2021.
In the first year implementing our global ESG Framework, we’ve put in place many of the key pieces, including: adopting an ESG Policy; establishing an ESG Committee made up of a diverse cross-section of operational and technical experts; launching an ESG Page on Major Drilling’s corporate website; building on our annual GHG emissions submission to the CDP; and developing systems to monitor our ESG efforts around the world. As we peer over the horizon in an industry that’s entered a long awaited upcycle, we’re seeing exciting opportunities in the future economy. Foremost among these is serving as a key part of the supply chain for powering electric vehicles (e.g. copper, lithium).
The mining industry has checkered performance on ESG, with great strides being made in some cases, and serious problems arising in others. In many ways, it’s still a very traditional industry. While traveling on the ESG journey in this context presents its own set of unique challenges, there are undoubtedly some broader concerns experienced across sectors, such as:
There’s bound to be more choppy waters ahead as the ESG movement enters the mainstream. What’s needed is a steady hand at the wheel. More and more, legal teams across the country are stepping up to this challenge – leading the charge on ESG. As this increasingly becomes a core piece of the value corporate counsel can bring to our organizations, it’s more important than ever for the in-house bar to share its travel notes and reflections on this journey, in the spirit of advancing the conversation among our fellow travellers.