Within the past year alone, companies and organizations have felt more pressure to measure their Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) goals. From clear expectations set by leading investors and asset managers like BlackRock, to added guidance from the Biden Administration, full transparency through ESG reporting has become more than a recommendation — it is an expectation.
In 2020, Ameresco released its inaugural ESG report “Doing Well by Doing Good,” which reflected on the company’s progress and provided a glimpse into its goals and initiatives for the future. Founded on a mission to lead the charge with cutting edge energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, Ameresco has always supported its customers with tailored solutions to meet their energy needs. But earlier this month, in its second annual ESG report, the company committed to incorporating these innovative technologies into its own infrastructure and operations to meet net zero by 2040.
In fact, Ameresco’s ESG report included a number of firsts this year. The cleantech integrator formed a Sustainability Team leveraging in-house expertise to calculate its own operational carbon baseline, which will serve as a guiding datapoint for future reporting. The company hosted its inaugural Green Week – an internal campaign to ignite employee engagement around energy conservation and sustainability in their homes, workspaces and communities. Ameresco also launched the Global Safety Ambassadors program to promote and foster employee and company safety.
Sustainability has always been at the core of Ameresco’s business and in 2021, the company looked inward to establish new programs and practices designed to increase impact, transparency, and accountability. “There has never been a better time to make sustainability a top priority,” explained George Sakellaris, founder, president and CEO of Ameresco. “We are at a tipping point in the transformation of the energy industry, and if we are going to seize the opportunity in front of us, we must think outside the box.” But how can companies across industries leverage this pivotal moment and implement consistent ESG reporting to think outside the box?
Although there is not one template, model or set of standards that will fit every company and organization’s initiatives, accurate reporting is key to creating greater transparency and for measuring success. Without honest reporting, it is difficult to hold businesses accountable and truly understand the progress that has been made.
When measuring the success of ESG initiatives, it can be beneficial to enlist support from companies who have experience quantifying information and developing projects with tangible results. To address the environmental component of ESG, companies like Ameresco can work with organizations to implement energy efficiency technologies and accurately predict cost and utility savings for reporting.
With today’s climate challenges and pressure from stakeholders to prioritize sustainability, the time to provide greater transparency is now. For more information about Ameresco’s 2021 ESG report, please visit: https://www.ameresco.com/esg/.
