SIGEA makes it possible to incorporate corporate sustainability into the companies’ business strategy.
Thus, banks, insurance companies, issuers of publicly offered securities, general fund managers and stock exchanges operating in Chile must report the policies, practices and goals adopted in environmental, social and governance matters, better known as criteria. ESG or ESG for its acronym in English.
When it comes to adjectives, sustainable must be one of the most used today. Starting with its most popular use in relation to development, which seeks to harmonize economic growth with the protection of people and the environment.
Another variant of the concept, which seeks to carve out a relevant space for itself, is corporate sustainability, “a business approach that seeks to create long-term value for shareholders by taking advantage of opportunities and effectively managing the risks inherent in economic, environmental and social development”. This definition is provided by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, a tool that evaluates the sustainability performance of the world’s largest companies.
In other words, with this form of governance, companies find a balance between environmental, social and economic aspects.
Gonzalo Asencio, General Manager of the environmental consulting firm Gisma, states that this new vision has been gaining momentum at a global level in the last two years, after the creation of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) was announced at COP26. “This has allowed companies to begin to take a new approach to their reporting in this area, so that they are more reliable and with indicators that express the real situation they face,” he says.
He adds that companies that adopt practices, policies and principles associated with corporate sustainability – mainly in environmental, social and corporate governance issues (ESG criteria) – obtain higher profits and better stock market value.
“They achieve this because there is a mandate that permeates from top management throughout the organization to follow sustainability guidelines and criteria. It is a long-term process that yields good results. But what comes next is even more challenging: applying the concept of regeneration, which means adding value to management,” he says.
Ratifying its great importance, the executive remarks that corporate sustainability “is the key to a business management capable of avoiding non-compliance, fines and the negative scrutiny of an increasingly empowered citizenry, aspects that today are also highly valued by investors”.
Virtual Partner
On this road to sustainability, large corporations and companies can rely on the Integrated Environmental Compliance Management System (SIGEA), “software that helps to manage regulatory compliance and corporate standards, considering ESG principles, and distributes responsibility among the different relevant actors in the organization. It is an intuitive, easy-to-use platform, with a design that allows it to be properly incorporated into work teams,” says Asencio, who created it, together with his team at Gisma, more than a decade ago.
He also emphasizes that SIGEA’s versatility makes it possible to fully integrate it with the systems used by companies to obtain data, thus contributing to improve their processes and streamline reporting.
With Sigea, a platform that is constantly being updated, it is possible to manage a set of requirements and indicators, structure management processes and connect information flows that allow us to capture evidence of compliance and report key indicators to various entities, such as the Stock Exchange and the Superintendency of the Environment, the Financial Market Commission (CMF), the General Directorate of Water and the shareholders themselves.
“However, since this information comes from the same source, when reporting it manually, errors are usually made. This is what we avoid through Sigea,” says the specialist.
How does it operate? The platform, which is hosted in the cloud with the latest technology, is configured and its different modules are populated with the information generated by the company. “Data structures are also developed, responsibility is distributed and a strategic plan is defined for its correct management, which involves a well-coordinated work by the organization. In this sense, in order to take proper advantage of SIGEA’s benefits, it is essential that companies clearly identify the requirements and indicators that they must manage and how to comply with them,” he says.
Adaptable Solution
The corporate sustainability compliance and management model offered by SIGEA is fairly standard, so it is applied in companies in Chile and Latin America. This, says Asencio, “because there are general management methods shared by the different industrial sectors. However, the platform has a battery of specific applications and settings that respond to different corporate management needs. It contains, for example, modules on environmental permits and commitments, corporate indicators and standards, legal compliance, water monitoring (Hidrometrix), social management, waste and hazardous substances, incident management, among others. social management, waste and hazardous substances, incident management, among others”.
For example, Hidrometrix is a specific SIGEA solution that automates water resource management for sustainable use. To this end, it assesses the risks of non-compliance with norms and standards; prioritizes, assigns and plans activities associated with compliance; and optimizes the management and updating of hydrogeological models.
SIGEA users? “Although the mining sector was the pioneer in the digital transformation of its compliance and sustainability management processes, today virtually all industries are adopting sustainable business strategies that require solutions like this one to generate the transformation of corporations towards sustainability,” concludes the executive.
To learn more about SIGEA’s reporting and management solutions visit: SIGEAsoftware.com
DATA:
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Basic attributes underpin SIGEA in the data collection and processing process: reliability, applicability, specificity, accuracy, precision, detectability and sensitivity.
See in Induambiente Chile: https://www.cooperativa.cl/noticias/corporativo/noticias/contenido-patrocinado/sustentabilidad-corporativa-como-lograr-la-reportabilidad-de-la-ncg-461/2022-07-11/194517.html
