CFO Conversations with Deb Ivison #1: Are businesses going far enough or is greenwashing becoming the norm?

“It kind of worries me  because there are big entities, big companies  out there, big global companies that are now being accused of doing this and when I'm  reading in my research for thinking about how to do better business, these companies are still there  on a pedestal saying that these companies are doing the right thing, yet we know now that, you  know, some of these companies are potentially not doing the right thing. So it does worry me that  we're kind of, you know, having that tick box exercise and in some ways,  I think some of them early starters, some of the early adopters  potentially, you know, have been sort of playing on the surface. And what I mean by that is looking  at what some of the small things they can do or, maybe not so small, but what things can they do  and still churn out you know the profitable returns that the stock market and the  shareholders were expecting rather than going like really deep in their business and working out  how do we change our operations from the grassroots rather than just trying to overlay  from the top and I think that to me feels like there's a little bit of the green washing going  on where you've got top down approach rather than a bottom-up approach that actually changes the way  that actual business gets done.

So I'm concerned and with these news Accounting Standards coming  out in January 2024, there's talk in some media that it might encourage more entities just to  do the tick box because people don't know how to make the fundamental shifts in their business. So  I think it potentially is a problem that might even escalate in the next 12 to 18 months.” - Paula Kensington

To watch the full interview, check the video below: