Corporations are increasingly committed to ESG reporting. ESG stands for “environment, social and governance.” ESG initiatives, especially ESG-related facts and data, are used by companies to meet the requirements of their stakeholders, including clients, customers, employees, investors, regulators and local communities to understand a business beyond its core financial performance. For example, stakeholders want to know about responsible environmental actions.
"Dwellworks has set a goal to reduce our core greenhouse
gas emissions by 50% by 2030."
This is in line with the Paris Agreement and generally accepted science standards. We began publishing an ESG Impact Report in mid-2021 to be transparent about our plans and progress. You can read our latest 2022-2023 ESG Impact Report here. Below you will find more information on how any company can take their ESG initiative from good to great, based on some of our core practices.
ESG programs developed in response to a need from investors to have reliable, objective decision-making data to assess corporate performance, beyond financial and operating results. At the same time, the UN and other global agencies looked to align corporations and investors with The UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As investors, corporations and other stakeholders began looking at broader performance criteria, data requirements began to be developed to support the efforts described in corporate social responsibility narratives.
High impact climate events, questions about resiliency coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, and increased demands for equity, inclusion, human rights, and fair employment practices have all contributed to more requests for information and an organized way for summarizing actions and results.
Relocation and business travel are directly associated with ESG.
Various researchers attribute the environmental impact of business airline travelalone as contributing between 2-5% of the earth’s total annualgreenhouse gas emissions of 53 billion tons of carbon.
Add in temporary housing stays, hotel stays, air, sea and overland shipment of goods, plus local area tours for renting and home buying, and the carbon cost of relocation quickly accelerates. Similarly, on social topics, workforce mobility presents a tremendous opportunity for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Approximately 70% of Gen Z and millennial professionals express an interest in global assignments, whether for short and long-term relocations, project work, or extended business travel. In offering these opportunities as building blocks for their talent base, companies have an unprecedented opportunity to hire more representative, more diverse professionals to fuel their global growth in a culturally aligned way. Employers are currently reviewing mobility and business travel policies and practices, recognizing that historic solutions are no longer relevant to how employees identify today, and offering the support employees need for successful moves to new locations. Governance, too, is key in global mobility and travel. Business needs, duty of care, data privacy, and policies and practices must also align with corporate requirements and local regulations. Without good governance, secure systems, and compliant operations and supply chains, no company can deliver and measure sustained solutions for environmental and social impact.
As a global solutions provider for relocation related services, Dwellworks was an early adopter of ESG initiatives. Our core values of integrity, teamwork, performance, innovation, and fun all align with the requirements needed to build programs that are ethically, socially, and environmentally responsible. Our bias to action, operational excellence and lean agile project management methodology were key in establishing workable goals and measuring incremental but relentless progress. With a global footprint, 500,000+ destination services and corporate housing transactions supporting our analytics, and a proven track record for launching MVPs and building on what we learn, Dwellworks committed to a formal ESG program in January 2021.
#1 Start with governance.
It’s tempting to jump in around environmental projects and ambitious hiring and talent programs, but in our experience, it’s better to build the framework first. Governance speeds up other actions, like having the documentation to respond to RFPs and certification authorities and keeping track of data from day one. This well-governed process earned Dwellworks an EcoVadis Silver Rating and multiple client sustainability awards because we were able to quickly define programs and actions once we understood core requirements and expanded on our existing well documented policies and protocols.
#2 Build the plan around stakeholders.
Clients want solutions that support their employees and their business goals; internal associates want to work with a company that’s making a difference; suppliers want guidelines and context; investors want evidence of governance and results; and communities want engagement and investment in shared local futures. We built our ESG initiative knowing we would need to respond to all these stakeholders.
#3 Set reasonable goals and make incremental progress.
Through our ESG Steering Committee, we established three strategic goals:
With these 5+ year goals as our guideline, we create annual goals and hold ourselves accountable for progress.
#4 Own the results and work in partnership.
ESG is all about measurement and results. While we strongly believe in taking positive action, ultimately the purpose is to meet stakeholder goals. Rather than reinventing the wheel, for example, Dwellworks is happy to work with well-established tools for carbon emissions calculations and compliant social program frameworks. Where we can add value as subject matter experts in defining a lower carbon footprint for corporate housing or more equitable policies in destination services for the broader industry, we're doing so. Our practice is to align with organizations like CHPA, ASAP, EuRA, Worldwide ERC and the Coalition for Greener Mobility to get to where we need to be faster, rather than isolating ourselves and adding cost by creating customized tools and supplier requirements. We urgently support standards in the interest of getting the work done and focusing on outcomes. We are fully aligned with the goals and steps laid out by the six leading global mobility associations who have formed the Coalition for Greener Mobility and active participants in essential initiatives.
#5 Report often and transparently.
From the beginning, Dwellworks has published its ESG results, acknowledging in our Impact Reports from mid-2021, year-end 2022 and now in 2023, that ESG in our industry is a still-evolving practice. Capturing data is a challenge with widely distributed, independent supply chains and business operations still stabilizing in a post-pandemic environment. Still, we report on the data as we find it, sticking with our plan to be data driven. Our reports also enable us to share the ‘how’ of our initiative: the creation of relevant thought leadership in DEI; the community and employee-wellbeing work done by our Inclusion and Engagement committees; the globally diverse and inclusive talent development managed through our HR team, and the sustainable results in supply chain being driven by our leadership and participation in key industry workgroups.
Download and review our 2022-2023 ESG Impact Report. Every company will have its own path, but we hope the report will provide a useful blueprint for program design, as well as an overview of Dwellworks ESG goals, performance, and progress. Need more support? Please feel free to reach out to send an email to esg@dwellworks.com.