Voices | Responsibility Art-is-Power / Shutterstock.com It’s OK Not To Be Perfect When it comes to advancing ESG goals, favor progress, not paralysis by analysis. By Kathy Cheng ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, better known as ESG, is a term gaining more and more attention in the promotional products community, and with good reason. This concept originated from the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and has been used by investors to analyze their organizations and how they measure up to the new frontier of socially conscious business practices. The UN Sustainable Development Goals were created with the express purpose of making the world a more equitable, hospitable and healthy place by 2030. Arguably, our industry has focused on the environmental aspect as its top priority, but we need to approach these 17 goals holistically. ESG plays an integral role – its existence will enable us all to get on the same page, work toward the same goals and implement the same operating standards, regardless of where we fit on the supply chain. However, there is still one big problem: There needs to be a gold standard for accurately measuring key performance indicators across the board to determine if we are meeting these goals in our companies and as an industry. For example, at my company, Redwood Classics Apparel, our factory undergoes frequent audits by our brand 34 • OCTOBER 2023 • PPAI
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