THE “S” PILLAR RETURNS TO CENTRE STAGE

The Social dimension has long been the poor cousin of ESG, as “E” for Environment and “G” for Governance took the lion’s share. But in 2020, the Covid pandemic pushed “S” durably back to centre stage. Companies and investors became fully aware of the importance of preserving health and safety and caring about the well-being of employees - as the latter drive value creation.

For a long time, measuring the social impact of a company on its various stakeholders came up against the obstacles of accessing data and establishing the right indicators. But in recent years, access to reliable quantitative and qualitative data has improved significantly.

Voluntary and regulatory reporting frameworks, such as CSRD, have facilitated the publication of readable and transparent data on social matters in corporate sustainability reports.

Gender equality, diversity and inclusion, impact on employment, training, equity and shared value, human rights, re-shoring of production, employee well-being, net impact of products and services for society... involve policies and strategic decisions that must be taken into account to determine the progress made by the company, as well as its social impact