• Unlike areas such as finance and accounting, there is currently no one agreed-upon framework or standard that must be used when companies define and report on their ESG priorities; rather, there are a host of ESG/sustainability frameworks that can be leveraged.
• For startups, we believe it is most efficient to use the frameworks as a check to make sure they haven’t missed critical materialities in each of the three ESG categories.
• Each of the frameworks has aspects that make it more or less useful depending on the phase of the ESG strategy development process or the characteristics and goals of the company.
• Most companies opt to leverage several frameworks when developing their ESG strategy. They ultimately end up with a hybrid model they can use to set actions and goals, measure their outcomes, and report on and communicate their progress.
• Here is our view of how some of the top frameworks can be best leveraged (click on the link to explore each in detail).

ESG and Sustainability Frameworks