ESG overview and the path to carbon neutrality
Speakers:
Ayşe Yüksel Mahfoud, Global Head of Corporate, M&A and Securities – Norton Rose Fulbright
Caroline May, Head of Sustainability, Europe, Middle East and Asia; Head of Environment, health and safety, Europe, Middle East and Asia; Partner – Norton Rose Fulbright
Matthijs van Leeuwen, Counsel, Amsterdam – Norton Rose Fulbright
Tina Costas, Director, South Africa – Norton Rose Fulbright
Deniz Altınay, Senior Partner – Pekin Bayar Mizrahi / Moderator
As a global company with multidisciplinary ESG teams across all regions, we receive many requests from our clients to enhance their ESG knowledge and for us to share our ESG advice with them. This demand, coupled with the contemporary agenda for Turkish companies needs to be better prepared for ESG regulations, led us to initiate the Turkey Webinar Series on 2022 ESG Trends.
In this first session of the webinars, held June 7, 2022, Ayşe Yüksel Mahfoud emphasized that ESG is now a priority for everyone: investors, financial institutions, stakeholders, suppliers, Boards of Directors and customers and that very soon, ESG compliance will be a priority for all businesses. Caroline May stated that the ESG focus which has been mainly on environmental topics until now is extending towards the social and governance topics, with human rights and modern slavery, diversity and inclusion, supply chain and cybersecurity areas coming much more into focus.
From a regional perspective, Matthijs van Leeuwen analyzed the regulations under the EU green deal and the Taxanomy Regulation with which businesses will need to cope to continue doing business in and with Europe. Tina Costas described the standards of the world carbon markets which are still running on a voluntary basis. Deniz Altınay highlighted that Turkey, although making recent progress with the Sustainability Index of the stock exchange, Corporate Governance Regulations, Sustainability Principles and the Green Deal Action Plan announced by the Ministry of Trade, is still in its early stage in terms of ESG developments.
