As capital markets, investors, lenders and corporate off-takers accelerate their engagement with the challenges of global warming and other environmental threats, the development of formalized ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles has created great opportunities for renewable energy developers to increase company and project valuations, be more focused in their own M&A decisions, improve their own business processes and those of their suppliers, and obtain financing more easily and at more favorable rates.
However, the relatively recent development of multiple ESG standards and reporting formats, none of which were specifically developed for renewable energy developers, can make it difficult to know exactly how to align their business processes to maximize ESG performance and how to communicate their success at implementing these principles to critical outside partners and investors.