Impact of Mandatory Sustainability Reporting on Corporate Functions

Authors

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  Nine Weijenborg

  Associate Director, Transformation and Financial Services, BSR

  

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  Nine Weijenborg

  Associate Director, Transformation and Financial Services, BSR

  

  Paris

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  Nine supports BSR’s work across various industries, including financial services, industrials and utilities, and energy and extractives. She focuses on design and implementation of sustainability strategies, reporting, stakeholder engagement, and governance.

  Prior to joining BSR, Nine worked in PwC’s sustainability services practice, where she advised multinational companies on sustainability strategies. She focused on how organizations could integrate the Sustainable Development Goals into their strategies and practices to increase their positive impact and mitigate their negative impact. She also audited social and environmental data. Nine is a One Young World ambassador.

  Nine holds an M.Sc. in Food Safety Law from Wageningen University and an L.L.M. in Law from the University of Amsterdam. She wrote her master’s thesis at the University of Cape Town, focusing on food innovations for local farmers.

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  Adam Fishman

  Associate Director, Transformation, BSR

  

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  Adam Fishman

  Associate Director, Transformation, BSR

  

  New York

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  Adam works with BSR member companies across industries on sustainability management, including stakeholder engagement, materiality, strategy and reporting, among other topics.

  Prior to BSR, Adam was a thematic expert on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, focusing on the linkages between climate, development, business, and sustainable consumption and production. He previously worked on the SDGs team at World Resources Institute. During his graduate studies, Adam interned at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and was a Coca-Cola World Fund fellow with Conservation International, researching the strategic connections between the SDGs and corporate sustainability.

  Adam holds a Master’s in Environmental Management from the Yale School of the Environment, specializing in Business and the Environment. He has a BA in Environmental Studies and Government, with a concentration in International Politics, from Wesleyan University.

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  Christine Diamente

  Managing Director, Transformation, BSR

  

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  Christine Diamente

  Managing Director, Transformation, BSR

  

  London

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  Christine leads BSR’s Business Transformation team, helping companies to manage sustainability throughout their business and across their supply chains and to develop resilient business strategies that leverage insights from BSR’s Sustainable Futures Lab. She works with companies across sectors and geographies to structure a sustainability management approach that mitigates risk and captures emerging opportunities, creating strategic advantage for their businesses, while contributing to a more just, sustainable world.

  She brings over 20 years of experience in leading brand, sustainability, public affairs, communications, and reputation management with multinational corporations at the executive leadership level. This also includes overseeing corporate relations with external stakeholders, such as the World Economic Forum, the UN, European institutions, and investors.

  Previously, Christine was Head of Brand Strategy at Nokia. She has also held major roles at Alcatel-Lucent and Alcatel, leading Brand and Corporate Sustainability and European Affairs. Christine has also served on various boards, including as a chair of the Telecoms Industry Dialogue on human rights, as an advisory board member of Reuters Events Sustainability, as a member of the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation, and on the European Internet Foundation.

  Christine holds a MA in History and a BA in History and International Politics from the University of Ottawa. She completed the Management Acceleration Program (MAP) at INSEAD, and she achieved the ESG Competent Boards Certificate and Global Competent Boards Designation (2021). She speaks English, French, Spanish, and Italian.

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Sustainability teams are evolving to meet the demands of rapidly changing regulations and standards. The roles of the team are being expanded, with new responsibilities that imply wider and deeper collaboration across internal functions and leadership to help navigate the evolving landscape and prepare for new reporting rules. Sustainability teams increasingly collaborate cross-functionally to navigate this evolving landscape to address environment, social impact, human rights, and governance.

Informed by research and companies’ shared experience in the Future of Reporting Collaborative Initiative, BSR’s policy brief discusses the impact of these requirements across internal functions—including Boards and the C-suite, finance, audit, procurement, marketing, and IT—and provides key implications and recommendations.

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Key regulations/standards and their characteristics
3. Implications for corporate functions
4. Sustainability
5. C-suite (management as a whole)
6. Board of Directors (or committee with sustainability oversight duties)
7. Finance 
8. Audit 
9. Risk
10. Legal/Compliance 
11. Procurement/Supply Chain
12. Human Resources (HR)/Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)
13. Marketing/Communications 
14. IT/Cyber