The Ksapa initiative was founded around a simple idea: the global environmental and social emergency requires organizing new forms of cooperation and innovation, combining the necessary expertise, to create and deploy solutions at scale. This is imperative in order to accelerate the transformation of companies to become decarbonized, equitable and human rights compliant businesses.
In this context, the year 2022 ends with a triple constraint extremely promising for the Ksapa network, our clients, and partners. The frustrations brought about by the COP 27 as well as the environmental urgency described in the agenda of the COP 15 this week will put strong pressure on companies and investors. It is no longer enough to make commitments - "The COP Coalition will mobilize trillions" - that are more or less followed up. From now on, we must deliver to remain competitive, credible and compliant with regulations.
Competitive. The effective transformation of products, operations and value chains adapted to the international climate and geopolitical situation is an absolute priority for our clients and partners. Controlling costs and margins requires in-depth decarbonization. Reshuffling the deck and rebalancing supply chains also represents a real opportunity to address various human rights issues at the source.
Compliant with regulations. Our clients all over the world are all looking at the European Union, and coming to Ksapa to get high quality advisory accordingly. Societal and regulatory pressure on companies and investors will increase exponentially. The actors who generate wealth are the ideal scapegoats for the problems of our societies. And they have their part to play. In response, do you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution? If your company wants to stick to its guns and not adapt to the new situation of legal uncertainty and massive civil disobedience, it can certainly strengthen its legal position. The risk remains in terms of competitiveness and credibility, which are essential for commercial and financial success. If your company wants to be part of the solution, then the complexity of regulatory compliance is embodied in two key standards, solidly structured, and truly integrated into operations and supply chains: Science Based Targets, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The essentials follow: European directives on Zero Deforestation or forced labor, or compliance with multiplicity of human right initiatives for example.
In response, Ksapa is and continues to be the strategic partner of its clients and partners around the world.:
1. Ensure the competitiveness of our clients.
a) The client does not want to pay the price but wants environmental and social performance anyway? Ksapa is taking part in discussions with the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank this week to share concrete recommendations to better align the evaluation of technical proposals for large infrastructure to this effect
b) Our digital solutions and field programs allow us to address very concretely compliance requirements with the duty of care, the Zero Deforestation objective and other complex regulations involving supply chains, while innovating in approaches exploring new financing mechanisms to move from being cost-driven to investment-driven
2. Strengthen the credibility of our clients.
a) Our consulting missions enable our clients to define 2023+ trajectories that allow them to go beyond current performance and anticipate the next milestones expected by stakeholders. This involves creating the vision, sharing the ambition to go further, and organizing programs to ensure our clients' leadership in terms of climate commitment and respect for human rights
b) Hearing various NGOs confirms the relevance of our digital and financial solutions to provide credible and relevant solutions to tackle the societal and regulatory challenges we face: WWF, Fern, FIDH, P4F, Rainforest Alliance, Preferred by Nature among others
c) In November, we took part in a workshop led by the IMF and proposed by the Finance For Tomorrow coalition, whose conclusion was simple: the development of ESG financial products increases the lack of financing for emerging markets due to the fact that the average ESG rating of companies there is less advanced than that of OECD countries: sustainable finance must consequently be redesigned to improve its relevance and effectiveness bearing in mind these unavoidable equity issues
3. Working on our clients' regulatory compliance.
a) Our teams participated in the annual "Business & Human Rights" forum held in Geneva at the end of November, which allowed us to explore regulatory convergences and advances in the field of international treaties
b) This month we are finalizing the coalition of companies and investors who will join their efforts behind the Green Transition Free From Forced Labor initiative to collectively explore, on both sides of the Atlantic, how to finance and strengthen the solar and battery industries by eliminating the risks of forced labor in supply chains: where are the risks, what are the regulatory expectations, what concrete tools to develop to eliminate the risks in one's own activities and so on. The regulatory momentum provided by the European Union (e.g., the EU forced labor directive) and the Biden administration is a good opportunity for an interested group to make a difference. Contact us for more information. Our activities start in January 2023.
Working with Ksapa means joining a group of specialized expertise, relying on proven methodologies and benefiting from an international quality network to innovate and come up with concrete solutions to maintain the competitiveness, credibility and regulatory compliance of your activities. The year 2023 will be eventful, and working on these fundamentals will therefore not be a luxury in 2023.
More than ever, Ksapa remains an international catalyst for concrete and innovative solutions for a fairer, more sustainable and faster transition.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Farid Baddache, CEO
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
ESG Reporting: Understanding the 12 standards proposed by EFRAG
In our blog this month : 12 sustainability reporting standards were proposed at the EFRAG General Assembly and presented to the European Commission last month. The content is intended to be as consistent as possible with the ISSB, with additional sector-specific standards forthcoming. With the publication of the delegated acts for these standards scheduled for mid-next year, Ksapa provides a brief overview of these standards here.
COP 27: Learnings for Businesses and Investors
The Sharm el-Sheikh climate conference produced what we anticipated in our previous newsletter: a combination of frustration with the climate emergency and the sense of an event that has become obsolete in its current format. In this blog, Ksapa highlights three lessons from the conclusions of the conference for companies and investors.
Providing Access to Inclusive Finance for Smallholder Farmers
Out of the 2 billion people globally who are financially excluded, 1-in-4 work in agriculture. And while more than 70% of people living in poverty around the world are farmers, financial providers only meet 3% of their demand for financial services. In this briefing paper, Ksapa discusses the need for inclusive financial mechanisms for smallholders, how it presents an impact opportunity for financial institutions, and challenges and recommendations in designing and deploying such mechanisms.
