ESG: The world's biggest team sport!

Last week I was asked to be on a panel to discuss what the G in ESG means to the horticultural sector.  

For those still trying to work out what all the ESG fuss is about... in short, the E (environment) refers to your business activity’s relationship with nature, the S (social) is your business activity’s relationship with humans and the G (governance) is the relationship within the organisation which demonstrates your intentions and proves your actions.  

Governance has been around for as long as business has: board composition, policies, reporting and the like, but in the ESG space the G also represents the data, accountability, transparency, intentionality and implementation of practices contributing towards global environmental and social goals.  

If you’ve heard of net zero, carbon farming, the Paris agreement, carbon neutral, modern slavery, and climate change, you’ve heard of some of the elements of ESG.  

For those wondering why we are suddenly talking about it, basically it’s due to the political and corporate world deciding on a range and variety of global targets to meet. Think about it this way, everyone on earth has been signed up to a set of common social and environmental goals – ESG has just become the world’s biggest team sport! 

These goals were lofty and when written seemed like a long way away, but now they are just around the corner there is an outrageous urgency to achieve them.  

For horticulture, ignoring ESG is not an option for we are a sector which both relies on many humans to do the work, and land, water, and nutrients to grow the produce. To further cement horticulture in ESG targets, horticulture trades in a global market. Global investors and global trade come with global standards. Global standards come with global politics. 

It is highly likely that ‘data verified’, active participation in the ESG space will be required for future market access, a trend we already see occurring. However, ESG is also supposed to come with opportunities attached. Unfortunately for horticulture, these opportunities are still blurry, whilst we can clearly see costs to our growers.  

As a state representative body, we will be advocating that our growers understand where costs will be incurred, who is incurring them and demanding fair allocation across the supply chain. The worst outcome would be to wrangle this ESG beast too late and be left with the burden being pushed down the supply chain and shouldered by our growers.  

For those who haven’t started on your ESG journey yet, you’re behind but we aren’t judging. It’s a space the world is grappling with. For those who have started and still don’t know if they’re ahead or behind – that’s not surprising given it’s hard to know where we are in the race given the finish line hasn’t been defined and in fact keeps moving. 

Rest assured; we will work hard with all our growers to navigate this space now and into the future.