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Governance: The Foundation of the Ethical Enterprise

Connecting the E and the S in ESG: Governance.

Risk and compliance programs have been fundamental to enterprise organizations for more than two decades now since they identify, assess, and control risks so that businesses can fulfill objectives, plan for uncertainty and remain in compliance with laws and regulations. The acronym and subsequent codification of GRC emerged in 2003, coined by members of the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG). This codification introduced the essential component of Governance.  

At its most fundamental level, Governance is about ethics and integrity. It is the framework of controls that companies put in place to govern themselves–ensuring that day in and day out, actions and decisions at all levels are consistent with company values and policy. 

For anyone following the increasing importance of ESG, this should sound familiar because this framework of governance is also the foundation through which businesses will ensure the effective adoption and progress of their programs around environmental and social impact. 

Governance in ESG: The Foundation of the Ethical Enterprise

Specialized, but linked 

Before the availability of digital platforms, Governance, Risk, and Compliance activities were spread across clear-cut areas of expertise such as enterprise and operational risk management, Human Resources, Accounting, Internal Audit, Third-party management, IT Risk, and more. These centers of expertise remain critical, yet the need to collaborate across these disciplines has never been more urgent. 

Today, with more channels for communication and better record-keeping than ever, redundant copies of disjointed data points, inconsistently controlled spreadsheets and no single source of truth are all conditions that can be eliminated by consolidating activities on an intelligent GRC platform. 

Leveraging connection 

Connecting Risk, Compliance, Sustainability and Ethics and Compliance learning is the logical route to thriving in an increasingly interlinked world with rapidly changing risks, priorities and expectations from investors, regulators, customers and employees. 

When we align regulatory change with policy, environmental facts on the ground with environmental impact goals; and social imperatives with ethical safeguards, we drive true Governance. 

Look to SAI360 for a versatile platform that connects disparate areas of your organization to a single source of truth and makes it easy to apply relevant Governance policies wherever they are needed.

 


Learn more about SAI360's ESG solutions. Or, contact us today to learn more about how GRC empowers your ESG program. 

 


Read more about the fundamentals of ESG:

 


Whitepaper – ESG: Strategic Approaches to Thrive in the New Era of Risk and Compliance Management

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