This course explains what is Environmental and Social Governance, and why it is vital for businesses to embrace this new perspective in order to achieve better performance. Traditionally, evaluation of businesses focused on financial performance only. But today, organisations and institutions face new and increasingly important environmental and social evolutionary risks that demand adjusting their activities and governance. Businesses must evolve to prepare for a triple bottom line evaluation, where not only financial, but also social and environmental performance matter.

To do this, companies and institutions need to go through a process of self evaluation and identify how they can have a positive impact in people and the planet, and what are the social and environmental risks they are exposed to. This exercise will imply modernizing the companies' Governance, and must involve all stakeholders that relate to the company. There is guidance available to do this and the course helps navigating this process.

As Investors and Creditors are increasingly concerned with the environmental and social performance of companies, managing ESG risks and having a proper ESG strategy is becoming essential. While Big Corporations are capable of allocating resources (financial and otherwise) to this task, small businesses have bigger constraints in this area. The course provides guidance and inspiration for smaller businesses to navigate the task of managing ESG risks taking into account the small size of operations and limited resources, while preparing them to face the increased scrutiny from bigger clients, banks or investors.