In the UK and Europe, ESG (Environmental and Social Governance) continues to be a priority, in legislation, government procurement decisions and for consumers.
Organisations must focus on aligning ESG strategy with business operations, integrating this into employee decisions, risk analysis and product design as a day-today consideration.
The UK Corporate Governance Code (2025) extends requirement for formal ESG reporting to organisations with over 500 employees.
What are the top trends and topics in Governance, Risk and Compliance for ESG and CSR reporting?
1. Embedding ESG into Corporate Strategy
It’s no longer sufficient for ESG to be a bolt-on activity. Companies must integrate ESG into their business strategy, and key business processes, moving beyond siloed sustainability reports to align ESG with corporate goals, KPIs, and investment decisions. This also supports better employee buy-in as organisations clarify their vision and mission to align strategy and purpose.
Boards must assess how ESG factors support long-term value creation and enhanced risk management, understanding environmental risks like carbon transition, social risks such as workforce wellbeing, and governance concerns including board diversity.
Businesses should undertake materiality assessments to identify ESG issues most relevant to their sector, stakeholders, and operations, using the Sustainable Development Goals as a starter to determine priorities. This may require some skills development of board members, which is something The GameChanger Consultancy facilitates with our bespoke ESG and CSR workshops for boards and executive directors.
Leadership teams should embed ESG into decision-making frameworks, clearly connecting environmental and social stewardship to long-term commercial success and brand value.
Integrating ESG into business planning also demonstrates forward-thinking approaches to investors, regulators, and employees – key stakeholders under the new reporting regime. This shift marks a clear move from ESG as ‘nice to have’ to ‘essential’ for compliance and market positioning.
2. Board Oversight and ESG Accountability
From 2025, the revised code places accountability for ESG reporting at board level, requiring directors to demonstrate both oversight and capability in assessing ESG risks and opportunities.
Companies must ensure that their boards are aware of issues and actively driving strategy and culture, defining clear ESG and CSR roles and responsibilities and ensuring appropriate expertise is either present, developed or sourced via training and advisory services.
Boards should regularly review performance metrics aligned to ESG goals, engaging regularly and transparently with stakeholders. ESG risk should be embedded into risk management frameworks and audit and risk committees. Transparency and integrity in governance processes is now essential, with strong emphasis on meaningful disclosure and active oversight.
This goes beyond signing off reports – it’s about shaping and aligning corporate values and ensuring ESG commitments are embedded at every level of governance. For compliance, boards must be able to evidence that ESG is an integrated part of how the company is run, not simply a tick-box exercise, or “green-washing”.
3. Strengthening ESG Data and Reporting Frameworks
Robust data systems are essential and organisations must implement mechanisms to capture, analyse, and report accurate metrics – spanning environmental impact, workforce demographics, diversity and inclusion, ethics, and supply chain practices.
In 2025, ESG reporting is expected to be transparent, consistent, and aligned with recognised frameworks such as TCFD, ISSB, and the new UK Sustainability Disclosure Standards (SDS). Companies need to move quickly to align internal reporting processes with these standards to ensure that they are capturing the right data and presenting it in a format that is meaningful, meeting regulatory and stakeholder expectations.
Best practice requires the involvement of cross-functional teams – from HR and procurement to legal and IT – to collect and validate data and to be aware of requirements when reviewing processes and policies. Audit processes will evolve to include ESG information, and organisations may consider the use of ESG assurance providers for credibility, where in-house capability is not developed.
Having accurate, auditable ESG data supports compliance and enables senior leadership to identify areas for improvement and respond to investor, customer, and employee concerns with confidence.
9. Delivering ESG-Linked Learning and Culture Change
Embedding ESG and CSR into the DNA of an organisation means creating cultures that support sustainable, ethical, and inclusive decision-making at every level. The greatest asset in this is employees, and most people genuinely want to do good, and work for fair, ethical and environmentally and socially-conscious companies – in fact it’s becoming an imperative for millennials and Gen Y. Compliance with the governance code is a start, but true ESG culture requires more than policies – it calls for hearts as well as heads to be engaged, and real behavioural change across the organisation with equity as a key feature.
Companies must roll out learning and development initiatives, as well as embedding the principles in codes of conduct and ways of working to build ESG and CSR literacy – particularly for leadership, line managers, procurement teams, and risk managers. Topics can include climate literacy, unconscious bias, sustainable procurement, ethical leadership, and stakeholder capitalism, and my findings are when these are offered, it provokes discussion and beneficial changes for the organisations that I have worked with.
Culture change also requires visible leadership. Senior executives must live the values, champion initiatives, encourage debate and challenge in a healthy way, and align performance and development plans, as well as incentives, with ESG and CSR outcomes, going beyond the bottom line.
The new code requirements ensure organisation evidence ESG and CSR are part of workforce development and culture, beyond the boardroom and annual reports. True environmental and social responsibility goes beyond leadership sound bites.
When social value and societal benefit, as well as environmental stewardship, becomes part of how people think, behave and make decisions, organisations will be well-positioned to meet and exceed their regulatory obligations, and also to perform well for shareholders and stakeholders alike. Good business is good business.
© 2025 Laura Trendall, The GameChanger Consultancy Ltd.
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