Gence Emek, Head of EMEA Sales at Novata, joins this episode of Sustainable Intelligence to dive into practical sustainability and making effective ESG decisions. Gence identifies key challenges ESG practitioners face and their impact on decision-making. He further emphasizes the importance of mindset over strategy, advocating for clear communication of simple, actionable ideas to stakeholders for driving sustainable change.
About Sustainable Intelligence
Sustainable Intelligence is an interview series from Novata that explores ESG and sustainability in the private markets. From carbon accounting to using data to create value, the series dives into the challenges and opportunities facing private market investors and company leaders as their integrate ESG across the business and respond to regulatory requirements. Each episode centers authentic dialogue, highlighting experts at the forefront of advancing ESG data collection and driving meaningful progress in the sustainability landscape. Listen to more episodes.
Conversation with Gence Emek (Transcript)
Ella Williamson: Welcome to Sustainable Intelligence, where we discuss all things ESG and sustainability for the private markets, brought to you by Novata. I’m Ella Williamson and I’m thrilled to be your host.
Joining us today is Gence Emek, Head of EMEA Sales at Novata, who has led the expansion of Novata’s sustainable solutions across Europe since 2022. Before this, Gence has helped build multiple SaaS teams and companies. Therefore, he couldn’t be better placed to discuss today’s topic on practical sustainability and how to make real-world decisions on ESG.
Gence, what would you say are the biggest challenges ESG practitioners encounter when deciding to improve their ESG data collection and reporting processes, or capabilities?
Gence Emek: That’s a really good question. One of the great things about my job is that I get to speak to hundreds of companies and ESG practitioners across EMEA. From an ESG point of view, as well as many other factors, the region is very diverse. Even with that diversity, three challenges have consistently shown up over the years.
The first is that a lot of people simply don’t know what to do. In many cases, even those reporting ESG for many years are unsure what the right approach is. And that’s not a bad thing or a problem in and of itself, by the way. This space has been evolving so rapidly, whether it’s new regulations appearing, standards and frameworks changing, or new technologies and capabilities being introduced into the market. There’s a lot to take into account for resource-constrained and time-sensitive ESG practitioners.
Additionally, there’s a lot of noise out there, promises that can’t be met, and so forth. This makes things especially difficult for practitioners. Not knowing what to do in a situation with vast amounts of information can create decision-making issues.
This leads me to the second problem, which is related to the first, practitioners end up spending time and money on the wrong things that aren’t optimized for their desired outcomes, and in many cases, unfortunately, it leads to bad decisions. A recent example is a company choosing a system for ESG reporting that allows for complete customization of their metrics. At the same time they need to account for convergence, standardization, and data consistency to make sense of and compare the data they’re collecting. Those things are contradictory but the contradiction is often overlooked due to getting lost in the weeds and not seeing the forest for the trees.
Ella: I love that analogy. So it sounds like the combination of uncertainty, information overload, and over-analysis are key challenges that ESG practitioners need to navigate on a day-to-day basis.
Now considering these factors, how are sustainability professionals approaching decision-making to overcome this and align with their long-term sustainability goals?
Gence: When I look at the most successful companies and our customers, they tend to have a few things in common. I think leading practitioners really look at the long term and assess solutions based on how viable and relevant they will be two or three years from now. Sometimes they’re even thinking five or six years in the future based on some of the strategic contracts we’ve signed with our biggest customers. The best decision makers, those who get things done, understand that there is still uncertainty and look for vision, a proven track record of innovation, and reliability over the long term when choosing a partner.
Finally, I think the most successful practitioners aren’t practitioners at all; they’re leaders due to their ability to communicate effectively, they really know how to engage other key stakeholders and bring them on the journey. This is crucial as ESG undeniably touches so many parts of the business that without good communication and engagement, nothing would move forward. It’s also much easier to communicate when you’ve honestly prioritized and you’re thinking about the future.
Ella: Thanks for all that insight, Gence. in essence, real success in ESG involves honest prioritization, a long-term mindset, and strong communication skills. What strategies would you suggest businesses adopt to ensure they are making the most informed and effective decisions for the future of their business?
Gence: I’ll keep it simple. I think it’s less about strategy and more about mindset. Most people in this space are there because they care. I think by focusing on getting things done and learning how to effectively communicate their needs to stakeholders in a relevant way will be much more powerful than a big strategy. Think about it this way. A simple idea communicated well can significantly change the course of a company. An impeccable strategy that is super complex and isn’t landing with stakeholders won’t ever leave their Word or PowerPoint document.
Ella: And it often comes down to mindset rather than the actual strategy, executing one initiative at a time. Well I hope that’s given everyone some real food for thought.
Gence, thank you so much for all your insights today.
Until next time, let’s keep building sustainable intelligence together. Find out more at novata.com.
