On the face of it, the social element within ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) appears to be the trickiest to track and quantify. While a hotel can clearly measure their water usage or see that their chefs are wasting less food compared to last month, the answer to a question like: “How well are we treating our staff?” seems altogether more nebulous. How to put a number on it?
In truth, there are several indicators that managers and HR personnel use, such as regular job satisfaction surveys, employee net promoter scores, retention rates, absentee rates, etc.
Indeed, many will argue that a key strength of ESG frameworks is that they compel companies to measure and track very different areas of their businesses in similar ways. One technology platform helping businesses do this is called FuturePlus.
'Sustainability, inclusion, and social impact'
The FuturePlus platform requires businesses to answer 160-300 questions; many with a simple yes or no, others requiring evidence. Co-founder Michael Penrose says: “The methodology is very similar to how an insurance company will work out risks. It’s a comparable audit. We work across sectors, so we can compare a hotel company with an accountancy firm or a petro-chemical company.”
FuturePlus claims that it developed and delivered the ESG framework that underpinned Soho House’s successful IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in July 2021. At the time, Jamila Brown, head of social responsibility and sustainability, Soho House, said: “FuturePlus helped us to build a framework which covered things we hadn’t considered yet, so not only was it a plan of things we knew we needed to do, but it helped us by highlighting some goals that we hadn’t yet identified. It was super useful to have a mixture of quick wins that we could put in place straight away and bigger projects.”
Privately owned L&R Hotels, with £13b invested in 115 hotels across ten countries, is another FuturePlus client. Penrose adds: “Asset owners are finding that the value of their assets and their ability to get finance and loans is very much linked to their focus on sustainability, inclusion, and social impact.”
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