With the purpose of practicing the advanced business school's academic philosophy of sustainable development and cultivating business talents and corporate elites with sustainable development concepts, the School of Management held a seminar with the theme of "Strategic Drive, Focus on the Overall -- Lecture on the Financial Impact of ESG on Enterprise Development" on the evening of May 6th, 2023. The lecture invited Ms. Sally Zhao, vice president of OPPEIN Home Group Inc., supervisor of listed companies, Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) and British Chartered Management Accountant (CIMA), as the speaker. SoM Assistant Dean Jun Qi served as the host. This lecture attracted Students from DBA, MBA, and MPAcc to attend.

(Assistant Dean Jun Qi presided over the lecture)

Assistant Dean Jun Qi first extended a warm welcome to Ms. Sally Zhao, and expressed his heartfelt thanks to the co-organizers of this lecture: AICPA and CIMA, for their strong support for this event. Then, she briefly introduced the significance of ESG to the development of enterprises, and hoped that the students could take this lecture as an opportunity to fully understand the important role of ESG in enterprises and promote enterprise innovation and sustainable development.

(Ms. Sally Zhao introduced the concept of ESG)

After that, Ms. Sally Zhao gave a detailed explanation from three aspects: cognition of ESG, emphasis on ESG, and practice of ESG. By introducing the origin, development and definition of ESG, students had a preliminary understanding about ESG, which serves as an indicator for evaluating the sustainability of corporate operations.

At the same time, Ms. Sally Zhao introduced the current condition of ESG disclosure by domestic companies, and believed that most A-share listed companies still only disclose Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at this stage, while ignoring ESG. This is mainly because CSR is more conducive to creating Corporate image, companies have greater autonomy in writing CSR reports. However, compared with the traditional concept of financial management, corporate reports under the ESG concept need to take more factors into account, including value creation orientation, scope, motivation, etc. Besides, ESG take more stakeholders and value variables into consideration, and increase corporate competition. Overall, it is in line with the mainstream concept of financial management in the world today and promotes the sustainable development of my country's capital market.

Finally, Ms. Sally Zhao explained how to incorporate ESG considerations into the existing valuation methods, formulate ESG strategies in line with corporate development, evaluate the importance of ESG issues, and finally establish a reasonable ESG governance system.

(Lecture Scene)

Through this lecture, students realize that ESG plays a positive role in the sustainable development of enterprises and the improvement of corporate competitiveness, which motivates them to practice ESG concepts in future studies and careers.

Written & Image: Jiecong Li

Edited: Zhiying Zhou

First Review: Lei Luo

Second Review: Jun Qi