Non-financial information, ESG ratings... There are many and growing requirements for companies and investors to align their activity with the principles of Sustainability. Their contribution is crucial to leave a better world for the coming generations, but there is another essential agent to achieve this goal: civil society.
If we extrapolate the ESG framework applicable to companies and investors to civil society, we would find criteria such as the following:
Environment
- Consume decarbonizing products and services
- Take care of our natural and non-natural capital
- Keep resources in circulation as much as possible
Social
- Treat everyone with consideration, without exception
- Combine equal opportunities and recognition of effort
- Promote diversity and learn with it
Governance
- Have objective and complete information to build criteria
- Participate in the decisions that define us as a society
- Connect lack of integrity and consequences
If we were to carry out a "civic due diligence" to assess the degree of compliance with these criteria, I think we would find more than one "red flag".
It is true that we need regulatory and financial frameworks to progress in all these aspects. But it is also true that there is no lever for transformation more powerful than our individual behavior, our daily actions. We need to generate a strong impulse from the bottom up, recover the leading role of the citizen and the Civic spirit with a capital letter. The good news is that, being so, we just depend on ourselves.