Conducting an ESG Assessment for Neste Corporation

Situation

Neste Corporation was looking to adopt a pragmatic approach to environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk and opportunity management.

Impact

The assessment provided Neste with the ability to pinpoint ESG issues with the greatest potential for value creation associated with improved sustainability performance.

Solutions

We wanted the ESG screen as we were keen to understand the definition of ESG and to see the criteria you would be using. We were also interested to see how others would view us through this lens. The Anthesis screen provided us with a “mirror”. The value to Neste was that it confirmed we are on the right track to addressing ESG issues. It also helped us to identify some potential improvement opportunities, several of which we are working on, and others that warrant further evaluation.”

Situation

Neste Corporation was looking to adopt a pragmatic approach to environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk and opportunity management appropriate to the geographic scale of the organisation, its business activities, and overall strategic objectives.

Solution

The CSR team wanted to meet the dual aims of: 1) enabling Neste to identify the potential for value creation associated with improved sustainability performance; and 2) conducting a high-level review of corporate communications and external disclosure to understand the opportunities for improvement (e.g., from a sustainability perspective).

Anthesis conducted an ESG assessment to explore the importance and relevance of specific factors to the individual markets and geographies where Neste Corporation operates. Through an evaluation of the most material risks, we applied these insights to shape an improved understanding of the practical realities of, as well as opportunities for, proactively managing ESG risk, improving ESG performance, and facilitating recognition of existing good practices through improved disclosure.

Impact

Overall, the assessment provided Neste with the ability to pinpoint ESG issues with the greatest potential for value creation associated with improved sustainability performance.

We also helped highlight the potential for Neste to further leverage ‘big data’ to provide tangible solutions. For the CSR team, we were able to consider the challenges and opportunities linked to circular economy thinking; for instance joint ownership of the potential risk management and value creation opportunities for Neste.