1st Sustainability Lab: Governance and ethical capital: how communication areas can engage and involve leaders in ESG actions

Sustainability series comprises three meetings

The first Sustainability Lab, held together with Ypê on November 8th, discussed the joint role of the Communication and Sustainability areas in ongoing work with decision-makers. This series had two other events scheduled: November 22nd and December 8th.

Adriana Aroulho, president of SAP Brazil; Waldir Beira Júnior, Executive President of Ypê; Marcia Hirota, executive director of Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica; were part of the meeting. Antônio de Toledo Mendes Pereira Filho, Director of Communication and Sustainability of the CCR Group, acted as the mediator.

Sustainability and Engagement

The issue of sustainability is present in everything that SAP has done since it was founded 50 years ago in Germany – it’s in Brazil for 26 years. Adriana Aroulho, president of the company, said: “Governance, in principle, is the center of what we position for our customers, our systems bring transparency, better decision-making, data analysis for better governance, technology brings solutions to the increasingly urgent environmental issue.” “At SAP, we seek, at the same time, to enable sustainability for our customers in the three ESG aspects, also to be an example.”

Waldir Beira Júnior da Ypê spoke about ethics and company engagement. “At Ypê, from an early age, since my father was the company’s founder, we were guided to a certain behavior. He was passing on the ethics here to us, the children, and the entire team of employees. He was not a person of many words but many actions. We learned through examples what he did and how he did it. These are the values we work with until today,” he said.

“Communication is the pulse of the organization. We have to be very consistent about what we say with what we do and what we show. In times of pandemic, we had additional challenges of keeping that pulse in another shape. It is always a learning experience, and leadership has a fundamental role in transmitting security and tranquility so that communication can flow, and this is part of our culture,” said Arroulho.

“I also believe in the role of business leaders, of great leaders, precisely bringing them into this context,” said Márcia Hirota, from SOS Mata Atlântica – organization that turned 35 years and has the mission of engaging society in defense of the Atlantic Forest, a biome that it reaches 17 Brazilian states and is one of the most threatened on the planet. “Another point I would like to reinforce is about the relationship with the community, not only the direct public but with the entire community involved in the activities and the business. SOS Mata Atlântica has enormous challenges – in addition to protecting what is left of the Atlantic Forest in the country We carry out a whole forest restoration work, we are following the COP26 negotiations”, she said.

“I believe that the market, be it the consumer market, the corporate market, the financial market, ends up demanding today that companies have this ESG agenda and everything that it involves between their concerns and their tasks. Every company connected to the market, for sure, already has some of these fronts working in their business,” said Ypê’s Júnior.

The Lab can be watched here:

https://youtu.be/VeACXQ6h658