Archer®, an RSA® business, today announced the launch of the Archer ESG solution to help organizations prepare for increased pressure to track and report on the progress of their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) programs. COVID-19, dramatic climate change, and more evident social discord have brought ESG to new levels of prominence for both internal and external stakeholders.

Internally, previous requirements to report on the progress of ESG related programs are transitioning from an annual exercise towards one requiring near-real time visibility into risks and impacts. Externally, investors and other stakeholders want to know the organizations they invest in are going to survive and thrive into the future, and their ESG programs represent a critical element of overall sustainability.

“Risk management has consistently been on the rise with C-suites and Boards,” said Bill Diaz, CEO of Archer. “We believe ESG will not only accelerate that, but also put a particular emphasis around the governance of ESG programs as they quickly transition from marketing-driven promises to enterprise-wide programs that require careful risk awareness, reporting, auditing and response. Nobody wants to be the CEO that overlooked risks that publicly undermine their organization’s ESG program.”

Additionally, emerging regulations tied to the many aspects of ESG are acting as drivers for the need to get organized and seek efficiencies in tracking and reporting ESG risks. In the U.S., Commissioner Gensler of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has indicated that the SEC would respond with a proposed mandatory climate risk disclosure rule by the end of 2021, while Europe is expected to transpose the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) by the end of 2022 for an application date in early 2023, with the possibility that “reasonable” assurance is made mandatory once the EU reporting standards are introduced.

‘’These emerging regulations reflect government and investor concerns about the viability, the sustainability, of companies in the face of climate change, pace of technology advancements, and growing social discord in the developed world,’’ said Peadar Duffy, Global ESG Practice Lead at Archer.

The Archer ESG solution leverages the platform’s long-standing leadership around integrating risk across multiple domains, based on its highly configurable nature. Archer ESG provides enterprise-wide assessment, mapping, monitoring, reporting, and quantification of the organization's environmental, social, and governance programs. The solution delivers to business leaders a complete and aggregated view of the organization's value chains ability to meet its social and sustainability goals. Archer ESG enables ESG data to be gathered in a centralized integrated risk management (IRM) platform and integrates into the broader Archer IRM platform. By managing ESG as part of a broader Archer IRM program, business leaders and executives have access to quantifiable risk data providing the insight and tools needed to protect the business while adhering to their ESG policies.

“Where corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability were too often, but not always, pushed from a marketing perspective, ESG has the momentum and force to become a significant measurement of the integrity of the organization,” said Michael Rasmussen, analyst at GRC20/20. “Organizations need to restructure their approach to GRC, and its components of governance, risk management, and compliance, to embrace and deliver on ESG monitoring and reporting.”

To learn more about the Archer ESG solution, visit www.ArcherIRM.com/ESG.

About Archer

Archer, an RSA business, is a leader in providing integrated risk management (IRM) solutions that enable customers to improve strategic decision making and operational resiliency. As true pioneers in GRC software, Archer remains solely dedicated to helping customers understand risk holistically by engaging stakeholders, leveraging a modern platform that spans key domains of risk and supports analysis driven by both business and IT impacts. The Archer customer base represents one of the largest pure risk management communities globally, with over 1,800 deployments including more than 50% of the Fortune 500. Visit www.ArcherIRM.com.

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