Sustainable business is a journey, not a destination. Here are 8 takeaways from Insider's 'Financing a Sustainable Future' series that can help companies move forward

There are a wide variety of opinions about the SEC's proposed rule that would require companies to disclose climate risk in their financial filings.

But there is no doubt that investors are paying closer attention to climate risk in their decision-making, and companies have a confusing assortment of options for sharing that information with them.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler told Insider that requiring climate disclosures could bring about much-needed standardization.

"Investors are already making decisions based on climate-risk disclosures. Hundreds of companies in the US, thousands of companies around the globe, are making disclosures around climate risk," Gensler said. "We can play a role in helping bring some standardization to that, or what we like to call consistency, comparability, and decision usefulness."

A review of the comments received by the SEC on the proposed rule shows that business leaders have framework fatigue from navigating the so-called alphabet soup of guidelines and organizations.

"In our view, there are too many frameworks that companies are asked to align their reporting to," Prat Bhatt, a senior vice president at Cisco and its chief accounting officer, said in a statement. "As such, we believe a global framework would be ideal, but it may not be practicable unless there is widespread support and adoption by all stakeholders of such a global framework."

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The pandemic, remote working, and the so-called Great Resignation have contributed to forging a new kind of relationship between employer and employee.

Ensuring that people have fair wages, equitable opportunities, and chances to thrive is a cornerstone of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

It's also critical that companies manage the accelerated pace of innovation, particularly around sustainability, and bring workers along as the demands of the business evolve. Bosch, a global engineering and tech company, pledged to spend 1 billion euros over the next five years on employee reskilling.

"One thing we learned is the timing is very important," Mario Luecke, the director of human resources for powertrain solutions at Bosch in North America, told Insider. "People need a chance to apply the new skills they develop right away."

Automation sparks fear for some workers. But Ravi Kumar, the president of Infosys and a member of the advisory council, wrote in an article for Insider that companies needed to embrace artificial intelligence and automation for mundane tasks and train workers for the more rewarding and lucrative opportunities that only humans can perform.

"The path with the most prospects for advancement is upskilling workers for higher-level roles as technology takes over simple, repeatable tasks." he wrote. "In addition, there's significant payoff for broadening someone's capabilities to include digital skills that allow the person to participate in the economy that creates and deploys technology."

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Nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations hold corporations accountable for polluting the environment and discriminatory behavior and are often visible at global summits like the UN General Assembly and COP26.

But nonprofits are also critical partners for driving progress toward sustainability goals. The advisory council told Insider the top organizations they turned to for guidance, with the World Wildlife Fund topping the list.

The World Wildlife Fund is doing more than encouraging companies to do the right thing; it's helping them figure out what the right thing is. During COP26, the World Wildlife Fund rolled out new guidance on nature-based interventions that companies can employ to mitigate climate impact.

"We are at a point where there is a lot of interest, particularly from multinational corporations, in investing in nature," Marcene Mitchell, WWF's senior vice president for climate, told Insider. "It's very important that it's done in a way that has high integrity and has the long-lasting impacts that we want for people, nature, and the climate."

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The pandemic brought into focus systemic inequities around access to healthcare, education, and community investment. Social bonds have seen a significant uptick, as companies have sought to use them as a way to address some of the gaps.

According to Refinitiv data supplied to Insider, about $192 billion worth of social bonds were priced globally last year, on top of $165 billion worth in 2020. Before that, social bonds barely registered above $10 billion a year, the data showed.

"The applicability of the social bond has come to shine in dire circumstances. And the pandemic has definitely helped kick that off," Esohe Denise Odaro, International Finance Corp.'s head of investor relations and sustainable finance, told Insider. "It takes real-life situations to educate people as to how to use it."

Nevertheless, some companies are wary of the risks of wading into social policy.

"A lot of businesses are set up as an enterprise, not a social enterprise," Odaro said. "There's this fear of putting a spotlight on your business through issuing a social bond. And if your company's strategy is not going in the right direction, you're opening yourself up to a lot of market scrutiny."

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Chipotle ties its executive-bonus structure to its sustainability goals across a variety of categories, including emissions, DEI, and local and organic food served in its restaurants.

Marissa Andrada, the chain's chief diversity, inclusion, and people officer, told Insider that it's an extension of the company's culture.

"For us, it's this really big commitment to living out our purpose," she said. "It's only natural that we actually put our money where our mouth is and hold ourselves accountable."

That kind of financial goal can make the sustainability targets less remote and more actionable. Eunice Heath, the global corporate director of sustainability at Dow and a member of the advisory council, wrote in an article for Insider that it's important for executives to go out into their communities and see the problems firsthand.

"It's easy to view sustainability and climate change as abstract problems — saving a rainforest from deforestation thousands of miles away or preventing invisible carbon emissions from warming the planet so that polar ice caps don't melt," she wrote. "That's why I encourage any business leader focused on impact to step away from the screen and see sustainability in action."

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Want to be a sustainability leader? Get away from the screen and go see it in action.