Page 17 - pd309-Oct22-mag-web-Neat

MInInG connect

Oliver Barnes

Co-founder and partner ESG+F

Oliver Barnes is co-founder and partner of Australian-based ESG specialist ESG+F.
ESG+F supports companies and investors in identifying, analysing, strategising
and managing sustainability-related risks, opportunities and disclosures

Q&A

There is an increasing proliferation of ESG There are lots of ESG consultants available in
experts in the resources sector, how did you to the resources space. How does ESG+F differ in
come the space? its approach?
My background is in sustainable land use and impact investing. Our team has deep experience in understanding how these
I spent more than 20 years in agricultural land development non-financial elements can be used to attract employees, bring
covering Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Australia. My in capital and increase market access. Most ESG consultants
work has always been about development with social impact, come from communications or environmental backgrounds,
working with communities and other stakeholders to achieve but their messages often don’t get to the boardroom. You need
the best and most sustainable value out of their assets. quantifiable ESG performance to unlock financial benefits.
Working in Australia, I began to see my skills being pulled As a former MD of a listed company and a current non-
across to mining. It was a natural progression because executive director of Suvo Strategic Minerals Ltd, I have capital
environment, land, water, social and indigenous issues are all market experience and chairman David Trimboli is ex-Glencore
having a direct influence on strategy in Australian companies, and highly experienced in investment, commodities financing
whether mining or other industries. and trading.
ESG reporting has moved from a “nice-to-
have”, to an essential once-a-year-exercise to replacement for sustainability departments?
an imperative of everyday business. What has Definitely not. We are not taking the jobs from sustainability
driven this change? teams, we are just providing added capacity in management
We are seeing a tectonic shift in the ways markets are services. We work within the existing company culture and
assigning capital. support boards and management to manage, maintain and
The world of impact and CSR investing has grown and changed drive ESG performance. ESG+F brings its own software
significantly in recent years and the change has been defined platform so there is no software risk to the company. We
by a move towards quantifiable metrics on non-financial ESG can track ESG KPIs and simulate data to test how well ESG
disclosure. Some of these disclosures are mandated so can be initiatives behave when put into the market.
more easily reported – e.g. carbon emissions –but others are That could be particularly imperative when it
more difficult to report.
Governments, investors, customers and other stakeholders comes to capital raisings or project financing?
are demanding disclosure along these lines. If you can’t Exploration to production, critical minerals to gold; there is not
demonstrate how your ESG strategy translates to shareholder a resource company that won’t be touch by these trends and
value, it is useless and that points to a lack of quantifiable we do see a real risk to those companies who are heading
tools. ESG is a science on how quantifiable and disclosure of to market. If you are looking at capital raisings are heading
the non-financials that impact business. It becomes a risk- towards final investment decision, you are entering a world
adjusted approach to capital deployment in ESG. where credit committees are now asking about climate and
So, ESG+F has designed a strategy to assist other non-financial risks. If you are starting from scratch, it
may take 18 weeks to get disclosure-ready, in that time you
companies with this process? could lose the confidence of the market.
We have broken ESG down into a metrics-based approach We are trying to bridge that phase between DFS and project
which will get a company’s ESG reporting market-ready. financing, filling the gaps in the company’s ESG reporting at
Our ESG Pathfinder programme provides tech-powered, both the corporate and project level.
human-led managed services. What kind of companies are seeking out your
We work with companies in-house to understand what they
measure, how they measure it and how often they do it. We services?
map the relevant ESG metrics and data points, conduct gap Whether $50 million to $2 billion companies, we see they all
analysis and benchmarking against peers. From there, a have similar problems. We have two types of clients coming
baseline ESG score is generated and everything is distilled to us. The first are doing ESG initiatives but don’t disclose
back into a traffic light indicator dashboard that is accessible at them so are not getting value in the market. The second are
the board and operations level. disclosing but they have hit a wall, they lack a coordinated
It is about articulating the company’s performance to a level of approach and don’t know if they are spending their ESG
information you need. budgets wisely. But, sustainability not just an annual event and
our approach provides that real-time assessment. We’re here
to provide information and analysis to support decision-making
and focus efforts on particular topics.”

Should companies look at ESG+F as a in the spotlight