Let's Talk Sustainable Business The Conference Board

As Season Five draws to a close, the Conference Board's ESG Center Leader Anuj Saush joins host Barbara Mendes-Jorge to discuss the lessons learned and insights gained from our guests in this series. This season focused on greenwashing and how companies should tackle ESG issues, and our guests provided a lot of advice for those seeking to improve their sustainability communications and better incorporate sustainability into their corporate strategy. We'd like to thank our guests who contributed their time and expertise: Marilyn Waite, George Harding-Rolls, Louise Ayling, Malgorzata Golebiewska, Mari Granstrom, Genica Schaefgen and Guy Jubb.

Professor Guy Jubb, Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh Business School, talks about how sustainability reporting standards have developed, what he believes legislators should prioritise in corporate governance policy, the role of assurance in reporting, as well as why private equity and management and internal controls are two important governance-related issues for companies to consider.

Professor Guy Jubb is an Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh Business School and Co-Director of the Conference Board's European Corporate Governance Council. A chartered accountant, Guy is a corporate governance pioneer, having worked on investor stewardship and ESG issues since the early 1990s. 
In this episode, Guy talks about being one of the first people in the UK to have 'governance' in his job title, why he feels 'stewardship' as a concept is a sustainability cornerstone, and why remuneration and greenwashing are two important governance-related issues for companies to consider.

Genica Schaefgen from Ecosia talks about how customers' privacy is at the core of the business, how Ecosia is the official "planting partner" of debit card company TreeCard - which dedicates 80% of profits earned from merchant transaction fees into planting trees, why the company is very careful who it partners with, and Genica's work with the Social Entrepreneurship Network Germany, which helps raise the visibility of socially-focused companies to politicians and other stakeholders.

Genica Schaefgen is Head of Ecosia Germany, a Berlin-based tech company best known as the "search engine that plants trees". In this episode, Genica explains how using Ecosia contributes to its global tree-planting projects, enabling a tree to be planted "every 1.3 seconds", why Ecosia positions itself as a social business and takes a holistic approach to its biodiversity projects, and how the company aims to hold itself accountable by publishing their financial reports every month.

Mari Granström from Origin by Ocean talks about scaling up and reimagining an algae processing value chain, how she feels about EU and global climate and oceans policy, developing collaborative partnerships, and the advice she would give to anyone thinking of setting up a company with a bio-based focus.