The COVID-19 pandemic has justifiably absorbed
management and board attention, but environmental and other
activist groups have not shifted their focus during the
lockdown.
Despite the coronavirus, climate change and environment
organisations remain attentive, so corporations cannot allow their
environmental, social and governance (ESG) agenda
to stagnate.
Managing business survival during the pandemic, and ensuring
compliance with ESG policies, are not mutually exclusive goals.
Significant risk lies in corporations taking an eye off the
'compliance clock' while distracted with COVID-19 responses
and impacts.
Evidence of activism mounts
In March 2020, the Rainforest Alliance Network
(RAN) released its 'Banking on Climate
Change' report into the financing of the fossil fuel industry
by 35 private-sector banks. It found that since the Paris Agreement
in 2016, banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Bank of
China, had funded US$2.7 trillion worth of
