Throughout the centuries, companies have faced a wide range of challenges and changes that have caused them to rethink their strategies and redesign their organizations. The recent focus on environmental, social, and governance performance is the newest challenge facing companies today. ESG is not necessarily new, but a more structured and systematic evolution of prior Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting. It is not the concept of ESG that is challenging, but the speed at which the public and other key stakeholders have endorsed it creates the greatest challenge for companies. It has affected their ability to attract investment, increased costs for borrowing and insurance. This directly impacts a company's ability to finance and get access to lower-cost capital for their growth and ongoing operations.

To effectively meet ESG requirements, companies will have to demonstrate sustained improvements in defined ESG pillars, supported by:

• Established processes;

• Consistent and progressive practices;

• Measurement, reporting, and leadership oversight; and

• Disclosure/Transparency (e.g. public reporting)

There are many regulators who have or are in the process of establishing regulations required for the development of management systems. In Canada, management system-based regulations have been in place for over a decade, while the US has API RP 1173 to support the development of a PSMS. Many companies have already developed or are in the process of developing a management system to support their organization and operations. This is one of the key tools that companies can use to systematically improve their ESG performance. It provides the structure to support effective ESG risk identification, management, mitigation, and reporting, providing the necessary sustained improvement and governance oversight needed. Through a management system plan-do-check-act (PDCA) approach, ESG initiatives can be effectively planned, executed, reviewed, and reported to support ongoing improvement in ESG specific areas as well as existing organizational priority areas.

The proposed paper and associated presentation will discuss the relationship between management systems and ESG, how to leverage a management system to support systematic improvements in ESG performance and year-over-year improvement in ESG related metrics.