Environmental, social and governance imperatives can help accelerate the massive and fast transformation underway in the GCC. Through the region’s strategic role in energy transition, pioneering hydrogen, and circular economies, developing sustainable destinations, localizing supply chains, generating employment, expanding social inclusion and good governance, ESG can both drive transformation and create opportunities to develop world-leading, competitive advantage. This is according to a recent workshop titled “ESG: Reimagining our Region,” hosted by PwC in Dubai for regional media this month.
Globally, governments are shifting toward ESG, with huge implications, and it is no different in the Middle East. This is a complex topic with far-reaching consequences for businesses and society, in general. With the aim of cutting through some of this complexity and encouraging debates and discussions on this topic, PwC held an ESG media workshop hosted by its key regional and global ESG leaders.
The workshop provided insights on ESG challenges, economic opportunities, and competitive advantages from adopting the ESG agenda and outlined the core priorities for ESG in the Middle East that are specific to the region, such as decarbonization, climate change, diversity and inclusion, nationalization of workforce and water shortage, among others.
The session also aimed at building engagement on the crucial topic of ESG in the run-up to COP27 in Egypt and COP28 to be hosted by the UAE in November 2023. As sustainability and the environment will be high on the agenda for the coming 17 months, and further potential government initiatives are expected, there is a need to increase awareness and understanding of this critical topic.
Experts including Dr. Peter Gassmann, global strategy and leader, Strategy&; Stephen Anderson, PwC Middle East Strategy and Markets leader; Dr. Yahya Anouti, PwC Middle East ESG leader; Amanda Line, PwC partner and PwC Academy leader; and Azzah Fawzi, PwC Middle East ESG Reporting leader; offered insights into the current state of play, highlighting the burning platforms of ESG, with fact-based snapshots of both the tailwinds and the challenges that will drive change and competitive advantage.
Dr. Anouti said: “We are on a mission to make ESG the new competitive advantage for the region. We already have the most competitive sustainable energy in the world and that opens up unique opportunities for innovations such as green hydrogen. Similarly, giga-projects hold enormous potential if we can design them to have lower waste outputs and we build circularity into them.”
Anderson said: “At PwC, we believe that environmental, social and governance imperatives can accelerate the massive and fast transformation of our region and our role is to work with clients to help them embed ESG into their business. We have a unique set of capabilities within our organization to take clients from ESG strategy through transformation to reporting. We are committed to using our knowledge and expertise to help ensure our region realizes its ESG ambitions and sustains them for future generations.”
