Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG)

The development of an ESG agenda has revolutionized the way of doing business all over the world, including Brazil. Any company that wants to be competitive and have certainty about their business and their relationships needs to pay attention to this issue.

The ESG agenda is about ensuring that companies understand and accept the purpose and importance of sustainability in environmental, social and governance matters, as well as economic outcomes, so that their products, services, projects and investments take into account the impact they have on the environment, people and the planet.

These standards have been included by regulatory bodies in regulations across all areas of government, as well as in the business criteria of important private organizations, such as banks and investors. For example, if you wish access to credit or to be able to operate in certain areas, you must have already taken the ESG agenda onboard. Increasingly, ESG guidelines help to inform the predictability and security of markets.

In order to address this, we offer technical and legal advice and consultancy, through a team of experienced multidisciplinary professionals, to help companies design, establish and operate corporate ESG strategies and provide analysis and solutions.

We provide the following key services as part of our multidisciplinary work on ESG:

Corporate ESG Strategies:

We work to develop and implement tools and initiatives to incorporate ESG sustainability issues on business strategy and advocacy (environmental protection, climate change, human and labor rights, value chain and third parties, governance on decision-making and the organization, transparency and compliance), into a company’s processes, operations, decision-making and to provide information to the market, regulators and other stakeholders.

We take a consultative approach to designing, analyzing, executing and monitoring ESG strategies that combines structures and initiatives to ensure the systemic management of business performance in relation to those factors and risks linked to environmental, social and governance issues.

As part of this core approach, we adopt the following stages:

• Examining previous studies on the organizational and regulatory understanding of the business, the value chain and processes and the main stakeholders;
• Assessing and describing the ESG impact and relevance to the business, as well as specific issues and risks, and articulating a strategy to address each of the identified issues or items;
• Designing and drafting policies, procedures and action plans to address the relevant ESG issues, as well as establishing risk management and corporate internal controls;
• Setting and articulating targets and key performance indicators, both qualitative and quantitative, to measure and evidence ESG actions and impact;
• Provide support, training and corporate capacity building (In company or through contractors or business partners) to improve engagement with and acceptance of the ESG agenda;
• Design and create reports on sustainability and its impact and draft communications on ESG issues and impact.

ESG, the Market and Finance:

This service provides support to companies and organizations on how to meet the ESG requirements for issuing securities, and being included in ratings, indexes and measures. It also advises on the requirements for access to certain credit, tax incentives and finance that is linked to sustainability and ESG guidelines and targets, that are set by investment and impact funds, or for products, contracts and other projects, and subsidized or provided by public-funded organizations, banks and other domestic and international financial institutions.

ESG, Due Diligence, Contracts, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A):

This service focuses on corporate restructuring, conducting due diligence on recruitment and mergers and on reviewing corporate structures (governance, risk management, fiduciary duties and disclosures and compliance) to provide assurance on their adherence and compliance to the standards and rules for ESG, either for an area of business or an economic/regulatory sector. We also develop, review and implement strategies to ensure contracts, projects and enterprises comply with ESG regulatory guidelines.

ESG, Regulation and Litigation:

This service provides legal assistance and support to analyzing innovation and trends in ESG regulations and to ensuring that we adapt and comply with the current frameworks and standards on the legal duties towards ESG that relate to governance, management, managing contractors and business performance. This service also provides advice and representation for litigation in court or other disputes relating to the standards applied to ESG risks and impact.