Janette O’Neill: Why ESG Training is Essential for Every Business

Companies are way past considering ESG as nice to have: it’s essential. “We’ve gone from ESG being a specialist area that a few people need to know about, to almost every single person in the organisation needing to have some kind of ESG skills,” Janette O’Neill, chief sustainability officer for PwC Australia, told the crowd at Qantas magazine’s Think. event, held in association with LSH Auto Australia. “It’s a massive topic we all need to understand and we’ve got to invest into training people.”

There’s been a huge shift. “We’ve gone from, ‘We need to be carbon-neutral’ and ‘We need to reduce our operational footprint’, to a much better understanding of the financial risk and the fiduciary duties related to climate,” says O’Neill.

She is the first chief sustainability officer at PwC, and has responsibility for the firm’s ESG agenda, including as a partner with the financial services team advising clients on their strategies.

O’Neill has more than 25 years of experience in sustainability, strategy, people and culture, including in her previous role at insurance giant QBE. “Some companies are playing catch-up now in terms of broader corporate strategy and the need to have ESG embedded in how we manage performance. There’s real momentum.”

O’Neill believes leadership teams should regard reporting requirements around ESG as an opportunity rather than a burden. “There’s a perception that reporting is boring and we just have to get through it,” she says.

“Actually, reporting can be really powerful in forcing you to think about the actions you’re taking to meet the ambition. When you do public reporting, you are accountable to explaining the journey, not just the ambition.

“With ESG, there is that mitigation focus – and we’ve got to manage risk, we’ve got to reduce our footprint – there’s also huge opportunity by engaging with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and looking deeper.

“How do I make a difference? Where’s the growth opportunity? How can I think about renewables? What are different solutions to help my customers and help our communities to grow? That shared value concept is incredibly powerful and reporting can help bring it into focus.”