Jaclyn Seow of Openspace Ventures and Paul Ark, formerly of Gobi Partners, lay down the law on the Environmental, Social and Governance framework
Let’s put it bluntly: startups need to wake up and take ESG seriously, or risk repercussions. More than just a buzzworthy acronym, ESG, which stands for Environmental, Social Governance, is a set of standards used to assess a company’s behaviour that’s fast becoming a new norm in the financial sector. You can thank the general mindset shift of decision-makers who want to put the money where their mouth is—or where their values are.
ESG identifies risks and growth opportunities for every business. That’s right—every business, whether you’re a one-man show or boast a multi-market presence. For companies that don’t know where to start, we are laying it out here with insights from venture capitalists Jaclyn Seow and Paul Ark, both of who are experts in the ESG field.
Seow is the vice president of ESG and Impact at Singapore-headquartered Openspace Ventures, a multi-stage investor in Southeast Asian B2C and B2B businesses with 44 names under its belt including Love, Bonito, Chope and GoTo. Ark is the former head of ESG at Gobi Partners, a regional venture capital firm headquartered in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong that has invested in more than 320 startups including Glints, Urban Revivo and Fastwork.
Read more: A beginner's guide to ESG investing
What is ESG?
At its core, ESG is a risk management framework that goes beyond grandiose plans to save the planet. “A lot of people brush off ESG as getting everybody to reduce carbon emissions, and it doesn’t make sense,” shares Seow. “If you look at ESG more broadly, it’s trying to move the world towards a more responsible form of capitalism.”
In half a generation or a generation, there's not going to be ‘responsible capitalism’. There will be capitalism, and irresponsible capitalism