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Tony Wines is CEO of Singapore-based Turnkey Group, an ESG software and sustainability analytics company, helping companies digitize and improve reporting and strategy.
What problem are you addressing?
There’s a huge appetite for ESG standards, but the challenge we see is the complexity around it. We’ve been working with institutional investors, banks, and asset managers to help the companies they invest in or service with harmonizing ESG-related data.
There’s different regulations from each stock market for listed companies, and a lot of confusion around data sets.
How do companies define ways to measure ESG? How do they incorporate ESG into their reporting? How do they integrate ESG processes without negatively impact their returns?
What does Turnkey Group do?
We help companies identify what is material, use data to help them drive the right sort of business models. We match their reporting with demands from their investors.
On top of that, we create data to help consumers recognize a company’s value from an ESG perspective. This is meant to create a standard and reduce the fragmented processes that companies face.
What does this look like in practice?
We map the way companies manage their financial data, be it from real-time sources or from quarterly reports, to evaluate the strategic benefits of ESG.
Private-equity firms use our service to help improve their portfolio companies. They’re always focused on improving valuations, and are now incorporating KPIs like reducing carbon emissions or lowering energy costs. Investors want to know how this impacts a company’s bottom line and its overall valuation.
For example, we’re now working with a company in Indonesia that has been acquired by Kimberly Clark, the paper manufacturer. ESG is a factor in the deal. We developed a journey map to help this company, which had no prior knowledge about ESG, to generate 12 KPIs it could measure and report each month. These were organized around data sets to reflect the environmental and social impact of things like retrofitting factories, staff turnover, and gender equality – all factors that relate to mandates from the Jakarta Stock Exchange.
What else do we need to know?
We’re using data to demystify the complexity of ESG measurement and reporting to exchanges, investors, and regulators. Identifying the right KPI can improve a company’s valuation, by helping them understand the risks to their business, track those risks, and use data to drive optimal value.
It’s also important to combat greenwashing and to building consumer loyalty through ESG-related branding. Companies that strengthen their reputation are in a position to grow their business.
At first we only had historical data to work with. But we are shifting to more predictive data as it becomes available, such as real-time market data that lets us generate benchmarks for risk. But we’re also dealing with an increasing level of ESG-related compliance, worldwide. We need digital means of addressing risk and reporting more than ever – and to ensure that a company isn’t greenwashing.
