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Design thinking stands out as a key component of this case. It may be beneficial to brush up on the concept of design thinking and the components of its application and philosophy. Below you will find a few highlighted reference materials from the Hesburgh Libraries documenting the conversation surrounding design thinking.
Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) is a growing concept which emphasizes investment in companies based on their impact in a variety of environmental, social, and governance factors. It is often applied to companies in the form of a scoring system based on company disclosures on topics relating to climate impact, stances and contributions to social issues, and general governance or management practices of a company.
In certain spheres, ESG scores are being model as an indicator of risk when attracting investors. Resources below will give more information on ESG as a concept.
When looking for information to construct an ESG strategy, there are a few methods that could potentially help influence your own recommendations. Try some of the following:
Many major consulting firms published frameworks, standards, or strategies for ESG that you may be able find with some clever searching. A few options are outlined in the recommended resources.
There are multiple ESG scoring providers which rate companies, similar to a credit rating, based on their ESG disclosures. ESG scores can be useful in understanding ESG better as well as identifying high performing ESG companies. If you can identify a few high ESG performers, search the company via Google to see if they have any public facing ESG strategy or commitment information. ESG scoring methodologies have even been applied to countries and regions based off of similar metrics.
ESG evaluators have been known to have inconsistencies in their scoring methodologies. There is no central ESG scoring agency, and it is instead a system done by multiple companies that often do not share data among each other. It is not uncommon to find different scores for the same company across scoring platforms.
You may find that depending on what the company produces or sells, they may focus their strategies on aspects within E S or G to different degrees. This may be important as you may want to pick a specific pillar of ESG for your case recommendations to focus on.