In December 2021, Lise Alm joined Worldfavor’s team as Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) to help our continued growth. She brings over 15 years of experience across business development, strategy, and corporate affairs to Worldfavor. As one of the early key Spotify employees and previous key senior management role at the scale-up Volumental and at SCC, one of the biggest arbitration institutes of the world, she is a true expert in digitizing businesses and has focused on helping businesses through automation and digitalization processes during her career, often with a legal aspect. Her expert knowledge provides an interesting view on the developments in the ESG reporting market in Europe.
What are the main challenges for companies who want insights into their ESG data?
The demand for actual and accurate ESG data and being able to report this data is creating various challenges for companies. One of the biggest challenges is the immense data gap between the demand for information and the supply. There is a jungle of standards, frameworks and initiatives that companies are expected to follow and navigate, which makes sustainability a very complex area. Companies now know that measuring and reporting ESG data is crucial, but they often don’t know where or how to start. Standardization is the key to moving away from the wild west era of ESG reporting. Luckily, the needs of companies have also been more standardized. There are more standards out in the market that companies can lash on to, which allows a more lean-back approach. This means that we are now moving to more of a mainstream market, accelerating our vision of making sustainability mainstream.
A lot of new standards are being set now. How do organizations ensure that they can see the wood for the trees?
With the number of standards coming out, it is indeed becoming a bit of a plethora. Over time, we will need to have a couple of standards that you can abide by to make the process easier, but not too many. The most crucial point going forward is not going to be the standards or the methods, it is going to be the data itself. What we are trying to solve is that, through using the standards, we can make sure the data is comparable between industries and companies, allowing us to sit on the real core value here, which is the data of all these companies.
How does Worldfavor plan to grow with the developments in the market?
Things have definitely changed since Worldfavor was founded in 2016 when the founders originally realized that organizations couldn’t hand us the data needed to make informed and sustainable decisions. Since then, sustainability has become more mainstream, and it’s a topic that is on everyone’s lips. ESG is now something that is discussed around the dinner tables and it’s a key topic in the news. This was not at all the case back then.
2021 was a year where ESG really came into focus, driven by large initiatives like the EU taxonomy, the SFDR and COP 26. ESG matters have become important across all industries, and has also moved up the chain of command within companies. All boards of directors and executives need to address these matters today. It’s a matter of survival, not just for the planet, but for the companies.
At Worldfavor, we look forward to working together with our clients to help them achieve both their growth and sustainability goals. It truly goes hand in hand.
As the ESG-reporting market develops and grows (moving from early adopters to majority customers and from non-standards to standards) – we are growing with it, helping our clients on their journey and growing our product to meet the needs as they develop.
As part of this, Worldfavor’s mission is to not only provide the best product for ESG reporting, but also the best data. Worldfavor will become the house of data – housing the most relevant data and driving the ESG market development forward.
How does the recently launched Worldfavor Transparency solution fit into the companies’ strategy?
Sustainability does not work without transparency. To find a way in the complicated world of reporting on sustainability efforts, we launched the Transparency solution. A free solution that companies can use to both share and access the sustainability data within the Worldfavor network. Imagine Worldfavor being to sustainability data what Linkedin is to jobs – companies can share and access sustainability information, compare data and interact with each other. With this initiative, we invite every company to disclose comparable, top-level sustainability information in an easy-to-use platform. The Transparency solution will enable them to access hard-to-obtain standardized ESG data on companies they care about, such as customers and suppliers. By joining, they can also promote their sustainability leadership and make a true impact
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