The How, What and Where of ISO 55000: Integrating ESG Factors into Decision Making

The asset management experts from around the world who donate their time to develop ISO standards have been challenged to keep the ball rolling during the pandemic. A key aspect of developing standards is building and achieving worldwide consensus, which can be surprisingly difficult when in-person meetings are prohibited. Nevertheless, significant progress was made in numerous areas, many of which are closely related to decision making in asset management.

An acceleration towards broader and more balanced decision-making criteria

This past year has seen Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) become a key topic in the business world. Investors and regulators are increasingly demanding that organizations behave responsibly—not only financially, but also along ESG lines (i.e. how a business performs as a steward of our natural environment, how it treats people, and how it polices itself). Organizations will therefore need to align their internal decision making with the evolving expectations of external stakeholders. The ISO asset management team has been working with its peers in the finance and environmental communities to develop better guidance in this crucial area.

The growing importance of data in decision making

The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of good and timely data, as well as accurate models for decision analytics. Most of us have known this for years, but the pandemic drove the point home and elevated the debate to the C-suite in many organizations. The ISO team’s work will help guide organizations on what data to collect and how to analyze it. It will also assist asset managers in making smart and informed choices related to decision analytics.

Both topics are highly relevant to Copperleaf. We have pioneered the concept of value frameworks in asset management, which allow all decisions to be compared and quantified across a common economic scale. Copperleaf Value™ enables clients to incorporate broad ESG objectives into their daily decisions, and Copperleaf Portfolio™ allows clients to apply multi-criteria decision analysis on their portfolios of projects. Similarly, asset data and expert knowledge are leveraged in Copperleaf Asset™ to model the future needs of an organization’s asset base under different scenarios.

Learn more about how Copperleaf’s solutions align with ISO 55001.