Does EU and national ESG regulation promote corporate sustainability? – asked Irén Márta, Managing Director of BCSDH, in her presentation at the conference “Business without ESG?”, organised by the Market and Profit Conference Centre and BKIK on 4 April 2024.
In her introduction, the Managing Director briefly talked about the EU Taxonomy Regulation which aims to help investors and financiers make better decisions, and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and then went into detail about the domestic implementation of the CSRD and CSDDD (supplier due diligence directive), the ESG Act. She summarised the responsibilities of companies under the Act, which will be more precisely defined when government regulations are issued, and also mentioned the accreditation of software for data collection, certifiers and qualifiers, and training.
She concluded on an optimistic note, responding positively to her question that reporting and data collection will provide data and information to business leaders that will unlock new opportunities and also help them to become more profitable, thus moving forward on the path to sustainable business management.
In addition to climate change and biodiversity loss, growing inequalities are our world’s most urgent sustainability challenge. Growing inequalities have become systemic risks globally, threatening not only individual communities or companies but entire economies and societies.
The insights from the professional forum, including the challenges and enabling factors that were identified, will be further processed during executive roundtable discussions in May. Our goal is to provide recommendations for companies on the topic of human value, which will be presented at the BCSDH Business Lunch in October. It is important to encourage companies to act in this area and assist them in taking the most important steps.
First, Dr Barbara Botos, Ambassador at Large for Climate of Energy Ministry, reported on the COP28 Climate Summit, which she of course attended. She confirmed that a historic agreement has indeed been reached with the decision on transition away from fossil fuels, but that much remains to be done to really achieve climate neutrality. Her presentation gave participants an overview of the achievements and challenges ahead.
On behalf of the Bay Zoltán Research Centre, Péter Chrabák, Head of the Circular Economy Research Unit, first presented the company’s unique research activities focused on sustainability, ranging from materials science, agriculture and energy to waste.
