Compliance teams can provide important information and even play a key role in shaping the social element of a company's ESG programme. Key ways compliance can contribute include:
- Identifying the social themes that touch the company from a compliance point of view - for example, bribery & corruption, anti-money laundering, and health & safety
- Creating a comprehensive list of existing compliance requirements in these areas that the company must comply with, from legislation, regulation, and industry standards
- Performing a gap analysis to better understand where the company may not meet existing demands, where it meets those demands, and where it may potentially exceed them
- Helping the company to understand what it needs to do to meet existing requirements, so the company is fully compliant
- Working with teams across the company to identify ways the organisation could go beyond existing compliance requirements - without impinging on other requirements
- Developing, in collaboration with other teams, controls to improve social elements and metrics to track performance alignment to social element goals
- Monitoring social element programme adherence and regularly reporting to the business, senior management and the board on those factors, as well as to any special ESG team that may exist.