On November 17, 2023, the first stream of the advanced training program “Business Management based on ESG principles: from practitioners to practitioners”, ended. It is implemented by Baikal Communications Group in cooperation with the MGIMO Business School. 

The program reveals the theoretical foundations of ESG (the relationship between ESG and sustainable development, stakeholders in ESG, ESG ratings, legal foundations of ESG), ESG approaches in various sectors of the economy, as well as the communications in the ESG field.

For five days, the students of the program received first-hand knowledge from practicing experts, immersing themselves in the industry specifics of ESG approaches integration and implementation in leading companies in such areas as retail, forestry, oil and gas sector, metallurgy, IT, transport, financial sector. As a result of the course, students learned about practical tools for ESG integration and management that can be adapted in the context of their own business processes, thereby confirming the main feature of the course which is the principle “from practitioners to practitioners”. As a result of the training, 17 participants received a state standard certificate of advanced training.

Heads of sustainable development departments of the largest Russian companies and representatives of national development institutes were invited as practicing expert lecturers. The introductory lecture on ESG was delivered by Svetlana Gerasimova, the head of the project office “Strategies and Practices of Sustainable Development”. Anastasia Tsumerova , the Director of the Methodology for Financing Sustainable Development of VEB.RF, and Egor Tabachnikov, VEB.RF Risk Management Manager, told about the relationship between ESG integration and trends in green taxonomy in Russia. The analysis of the ESG-ratings methodology was conducted by Vladimir Gorchakov, the head of the ACRA Sustainable Development Risk Assessment group.

Special attention in the program was paid to the specifics of the transformation of the financial sector in the context of the formation of ESG banking in Russia. For example, Kristina Fuzie, Vice President for Sustainable Development of the Department for Work with Large Companies of Raiffeisenbank JSC, and Evgeny Obydov, Head of the Corporate Finance Department of Raiffeisenbank JSC, spoke about interbank lending linked to ESG. The topic of responsible investment practice in Russia was discussed in detail by Victoria Blatova, Executive Vice President for Sustainable Development of AFK Sistema, and Alexey Bogomolov, Director for the Development of partnership programs with Russian and international organizations of RSHB Asset Management. And finally, Ilya Korlyakov, Senior Manager of TeDo (ex. PwC), spoke about the features of ESG banking and risk management in Russia.

Another feature of the course is the coverage of a wide range of economic sectors and ESG approaches in them. The audience learned about ESG in transport from Andrey Napolnov, Director of Investor Relations and Capital Markets at PJSC Aeroflot; while they learned about ESG in metallurgy from Tatyana Rozhkova, Director of the NLMK Group’s Social Policy Directorate, and Roman Kazakov, Head of Severstal’s Climate Department. Kristina Popilyuk, Head of the Sustainable Development Department of PJSC Novatek, revealed the topic of ESG approaches in the oil and gas industry, while Raisa Momot, Senior Manager for Sustainable Development of PJSC SIBUR Holding, spoke about the challenges in the field of decarbonization.

Participants learned about ESG in the forest industry from a lecture by Natalia Malashenko, a member of the coordinating council of the voluntary forest certification system “Forest Standard”, while Nadezhda Galaktionova, the head of the Department for Sustainable Development of the Magnit network, told them about ESG in retail. Students learned about the features of green construction from Margarita Pozhidaeva, the head of sustainable development projects O1 Standard. Ksenia Kosogorova, Head of the ESG Center of MTS PJSC, told about ESG in “clean” industries using the example of IT. Ksenia Toporkova, the head of Sustainable Development of VK, shared (in the format of workshop) the experience of creating a sustainable development policy.

The final block of the course was devoted to communications in ESG: a lecture on GR in the context of ESG transformation was given by Oleg Kalinsky, Director for Interaction with Authorities of PJSC Uralkali. Marina Artyukh, Head of the Siberian Wellness ESG direction, spoke about how to involve stakeholders in the agenda and achieve the real integration of the sustainable development plan into the company’s strategy. The topic of impact investments, support for social entrepreneurship and opportunities for systemic cooperation with NGOs as part of the company’s ESG strategy was disclosed in detail by Anastasia Tsvetkova, General Director of the Lake Baikal Foundation and Director of the International Communications and CSR Practice of Baikal Communications Group, who also acted as the scientific supervisor of the entire training program.

Registration for the next training stream is open. The training will take place in the spring of 2024.

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