ESG Innovation Institute - General

When it comes to making choices, it's a real pickle. This pretty much sums up the biggest challenges for financial professionals aiming to steer towards integrated value. Surprisingly, the oft-cited issue of data availability isn't the main hurdle for these individuals. The real challenge lies in decision-making.

Yes, sustainability is high on the agenda of most managers and directors. But how serious and concrete is it? By expressing social and ecological issues financially, their size and importance become more visible and they can become central to the business strategy.

Prof. Dr. Albert Plugge has been appointed as Professor of ESG Transformation & Digital Innovation at Nyenrode Business University as of September 1. He is part of the Expertise Center Entrepreneurship, Governance & Stewardship.

There is an urgency to incorporate human rights policy into your business operations, as stated by Yulia Levashova, Assistant professor at Nyenrode Business Universiteit. Besides a moral duty to take good care of your employees and ensure that your company respect human rights, it also makes a ‘good business sense.’

Today, René Orij was appointed as Professor of Corporate Sustainability Reporting at Nyenrode Business University. "With my future research, I want to hold up a mirror to companies and accountants: think about the importance of transparency about sustainability."

ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) dominates discussions in the boardroom. The reason for the growing importance attached to ESG is that it will significantly affect the landscape in which companies and boards operate.

Is the recently updated corporate governance code still relevant and future-proof? According to Jeroen Veldman, Professor of Corporate Governance at Nyenrode Business University, this discussion calls for a strong plea: let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Read the full essay in Management Scope (in Dutch).

Not just companies, but governments and citizens too have a responsibility in making global value chains more sustainable. That is what Désirée van Gorp, professor of International Business at Nyenrode Business University, firmly believes. Global value chains represent processes in which goods and services are produced, processed, and delivered in different countries. Van Gorp: “Making these chains sustainable means, above all, taking solidarity as a starting point. What is good for us must also be good for people in the countries where we move our activities to, such as production processes.”

Major social issues continue to have an increasing impact, also on the business community. And these issues increasingly require corporate involvement. Remko Renes (member of the Nyenrode Corporate Governance Institute) and Auke de Bos (associated with the EUR and EY) elaborate on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors. They think about the meaning and the importance of ESG, and the influence of this topic’s focus and transparency on organizations and directors and the roles of supervisors and audits. Based on their insights, they give recommendations to directors, supervisory directors, advisers and accountants.

It is taking too long for companies to put well-being before profit. That is why a social duty of care must be enshrined in law. This is what Leen Paape says in his farewell speech as Professor of Corporate Governance at Nyenrode.

The Green Deal’s sustainability program from 2019 obligates companies to gradually focus more on people, the environment, and society: ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance). But are organisations adequately equipped to make their business operations more sustainable?

Sustainable transformation of organisations first of all requires transformation of leaders themselves, as emerged during the first meeting of the recently established ESG Innovation Institute, a joint initiative of Nyenrode Business University and KPMG to assist directors, supervisory directors and professionals in the field of sustainability.

While in the last decades an organization’s success was measured mainly in terms of turnover, profitability, market share and customer satisfaction, now and in the future they will also be held accountable for the impact they make on people, the environment and society. ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) is now central to the balanced scorecard.

Leadership changes when executives are held accountable for their contribution to people, the environment, and society. So say more than three-quarters of policymakers in a recent survey by KPMG and Nyenrode Business University.

In this video Stephanie Hottenhuis, CEO and Chair of the Board of Management KPMG Nederland, en Jessica Peters-Hondelink, Director Customized Executive Education at Nyenrode Business Universiteit, explains why the ESG Innovation Institute offers the Executive ESG Program.

Koen Becking, Rector Magnificus of Nyenrode Business University and Esther van Zeggeren, Head of Brand Management, Reputation and Marketing at KPMG will discuss the ESG Innovation Institute.

Making the latest knowledge accessible to any organization that wants to accelerate its sustainability efforts, that is the goal of the cooperation between KPMG and Nyenrode Business Universiteit.