Leadership
Jim Allenby on Running ESG Like a High-Performance Program
Start early, set a target, measure honestly and bring everyone with you: why the habits of elite sport suit the ESG work facing Australian businesses.
ESG Basic Literacy and Awareness Module - On Purpose Podcast Episode #4
Video from Parvate ESG.
Generated from the canonical interview transcript and validated against source data by Guests on Air.
How can business leaders treat ESG as a performance program rather than a compliance task?
Jim Allenby argues that ESG works best when leaders treat it like goal setting in sport. Start with an honest baseline, agree the outcome the organisation wants, set a target and do what is needed to reach it. Back each step with data, keep people learning as the rules change, and align everyone from the board to the staff.
Most leaders first meet ESG as a compliance problem: a stack of acronyms, a new report and another round of consulting fees. Jim Allenby sees it differently. A former professional cricketer who now coaches athletes and executives on high performance, Allenby has also worked with Australian organisations on environmental, social and governance reporting.
In an episode of the On Purpose Podcast from Parvate ESG, Allenby and colleague Paul Gaudoin walked listeners through a basic ESG literacy module. Host John asked Allenby a practical question along the way: how long do Australian organisations have before these expectations become unavoidable, given how far Europe has already moved?
The answer pointed to money as much as regulation, and it carried a message any coach would recognise. Start before the pressure arrives, measure where you stand, set a target and train toward it. This article draws out the habits from that conversation that leaders can use, whatever stage their own ESG work has reached.
Key takeaways
- Access to capital, not regulation alone, is pushing ESG up the agenda for Australian companies.
- Start ESG work early, while it is still low maintenance, rather than when it halts the business.
- Treat ESG like goal setting in sport: an honest baseline, a clear target, a roadmap and the actions to reach it.
- Diversity of thought on a board widens its knowledge and improves the quality of its decisions.
1. Start before the pressure arrives
Allenby told the host that Europe and the United States were leading on ESG, with well developed metrics, disclosures and expectations. Australia, in that view, sat a few years behind but was catching up as the metrics and disclosures became more uniform. The driver was finance. ESG is not the only reason to act, Allenby said, but its link to funding makes it a pretty good one.
That link changes the timeline. Allenby expected it to become quite hard to access capital without some sort of ESG performance, a report or at least a roadmap for the future. Pension funds and banks have criteria they need to see achieved before they lend, Allenby noted, and those criteria are the clearest clue to where reporting standards will settle.
The practical advice was to get started now, while the work is still relatively low maintenance, instead of waiting until it halts the business and everyone is all hands on deck. It is the same logic a cricketer applies to preparation. The work done quietly before match day is cheaper and calmer than the scramble once play has started.
2. Treat ESG like a high-performance program
Allenby described the process in stages. First comes an audit of current ESG performance, which doubles as education for leaders and staff. You don't know what you don't know, Allenby said, and the point is not simply to collect data and metrics. It is to understand how ESG can improve a business rather than tie people up in compliance for hours on end.
Next come the roadmap and the strategy. Once the initial data is in and people understand the topic, the organisation decides what outcome it wants and builds a plan to reach it. Allenby called it basic goal setting. Coming from elite sport, Allenby and Gaudoin found that executives buy in quickly when they see direct actions producing direct results.
Metrics and disclosures follow, matched to the outcome the organisation wants and to the right reporting standard for its stage of business, with larger organisations generally carrying more metrics. There is some compliance in this stage, and it needs tangible results and data. Only then does a published ESG report come in, which Allenby placed last and called a really great tool if used correctly.
3. Bring the whole organisation with you
ESG does not stand still. Allenby expected renewed strategies and new government climate mandates within months, with change arriving monthly, quarterly and yearly. That makes regular review and upskilling essential. The approach Allenby favoured keeps executives current through short, bite-sized learning, gives middle management more detail and treats staff as the real drivers of change.
Staff care about ESG, Allenby noted, because it touches their lives at work and at home. Organisations that take the social pillar seriously, including psychological safety, also find it easier to attract and retain people and to become a workplace of choice. Allenby wanted ESG to be about performance as well as compliance, and staff wellbeing is where the two meet.
Governance came back to the board. Diversity and inclusion, in Allenby's view, is not only about gender or race but about diversity of thought, and about everyone feeling heard, respected and able to progress. A more diverse board brings broader knowledge to the table and a better chance of informed decisions. Adding people as tokens fails; the aim is to set them up to succeed.
