A Different Kind of Networking
ESG continues to be a focus for development and investment for Specialty Chemical Manufacturers who attended the SOCMA ESG Workshop, hosted at the Roger Milliken Center in Spartanburg, SC on Tuesday, April 11, 2023.
More than 40 people representing their company’s interest gathered to:
- Network with companies & professionals developing their ESG programs
- Benchmark with companies in the industry
- Attend educational programing and discussion sessions related to key ESG topics
- Learn about available SOCMA resources to help kick-start their journey
Building an ESG Culture and Community
SOCMA’s first in-person ESG workshop dove into four topic areas for developing an ESG strategy:
- Materiality Assessments: Conducting assessments, their use in identifying and prioritizing ESG issues, and obtaining stakeholder input to guide ESG strategy development.
- Sustainable Supply Chains: Presenting and discussing the different components of a sustainable supply chain, benchmarking data, and understanding resources available in the industry.
- Regulatory Watch-Outs: Presenting on changes at EPA and updating attendees on the SEC climate risk disclosure regulation (scope 1-3 emissions).
- Scope 3 Emissions: Defining, Measuring & Itemizing Scope 3 Emissions, calculation methods, and how to start your own scope 3 program.
The primary takeaway from the workshop was ESG is a business investment and becomes a part of company culture. Milliken kicked off the workshop by presenting an overview of their ESG program and later included attendees as stakeholders in a mock materiality assessment exercise.
Alongside the quality of the workshop sessions and presentations, which provided not only information but practical approaches to execute programs, attendees expressed the value of having SOCMA serve as a resource for the industry to provide a forum to benchmark and network.
Workshop Takeaways
Additional takeaways from the workshop included:
- Information to develop a meaningful Sustainability Policy and messaging.
- The importance of communicating the status of ESG regulatory developments and potential impact to customers, which will ultimately result in increased “requests” for ESG participation.
- The understanding of how a private company will be drawn into the ESG program of public customers.
- A summary of internal discussions among business leaders of the targets, timelines and milestones for strengthening an ESG focus.
Based on feedback from this workshop, SOCMA will continue to build out its ESG resources and include ESG as a focal point at the SOCMA Summit in November.
100% of workshop attendees indicated they would attend a SOCMA ESG workshop again.
Presentations Archive
Intro Session – Milliken ESG Journey
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Session 1 – Materiality Assessments
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Session 2 – Sustainable Supply Chains
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Session 3- Regulatory Updates & Watch-Outs
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Session 4 – Rockwell Automation
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Session 4 – Defining Scope 3 Emissions
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Thank You to our Workshop Sponsors
This program was supported by Milliken and WTS, Inc. Thank you for the support!
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