Hotel Mercure Kraków Stare Miasto, 19 September 2023
The BPCC has taken the ESG message to Kraków, with expert speakers explaining to those responsible for business strategy, how to approach ESG. The topics of E (environmental), S (social) and G (governance) were explained by Dorota Franczukowska, PwC’s senior ESG manager, Katarzyna Chwalbińska-Kusek, head of ESG and Sustainability at Savills and Michał Szalast-Dao Quy, leader of BNP Paribas’ sustainability team. The BPCC’s Urszula Kwaśniewska opened the event; the panel was moderated by Michael Dembinski, the BPCC’s chief advisor. The panel discussion format, with questions and comments from the audience, proved an effective way of tackling all the ESG-related issues that are facing businesses large and small, including in their supply chains.
The discussion covered:
- ESG parameters that need monitoring and reporting
- ESG and the real estate & construction sector – the biggest source of greenhouse-gas emissions
- Legal requirements vs. the voluntary approach
- The EU’s CSRD, and how it applies to supply chains
- Greenwashing and greenhushing (failure to disclose)
- The circular economy and packaging waste
- Educating customers, clients, suppliers and consumers
- The carbon footprint – and the water footprint
- The digital carbon footprint
- Minimum social safeguards and social taxonomy
- ‘Stick and carrot’ elements of green financing
- ESG-linked financing; hitting targets that lead to cheaper loans
- Fit for 55 and the European Green Deal – what it means for businesses in Poland
- Building a resilient organisation
- Employee engagement in ESG goals, ESG ambassadors
- Transparency, responsibility and corporate governance
- Remuneration based on KPIs linked to ESG goals
- ‘G’ as the monitoring and reporting of ESG
- Compliance, external audits and internal procedures
Participants, representing BPCC member firms and their clients/guests, found the event extremely useful from the point of view of the insights delivered and the quality of the discussions; there was an agreement that the BPCC should organise more ESG-themed meetings around Poland’s regional centres.
