A small sustainability team can face significant regulatory and climate disclosure burdens. How can they get ahead of new compliance measures and give executives and board members confidence that the company is on track for success?
With new disclosure requirements for Canadian financial institutions coming down the line, including Canada’s OSFI B15, Gore Mutual Insurance Company, a medium-sized mutual insurer, was concerned about the resources required to keep up with ESG and climate disclosure and compliance.
“We were spending a considerable amount of time researching different levels of disclosures,” says Gaby Polanco Sorto, VP and Head of Purpose and Sustainability. “We often must respond to questions like what are our peers doing? And, how do we compare? All of that has historically been manual.”
Manifest Climate helps Gore Mutual cut down on manual research time
Partnering with Manifest Climate changed things for Gore Mutual. The platform enabled the Purpose and Sustainability team to conduct deep dives into their own and their peers’ climate actions and disclosures. “It removes the number of hours of work required to do peer reviews and assessments against our own disclosures. With Manifest Climate it can be done in a matter of a minute,” says Polanco Sorto.
OSFI B15 is both broad and deep in its coverage, which makes it important for Gore Mutual to understand what their peers, especially the larger ones, were saying and doing on certain topics in order to benchmark against them.
“Manifest Climate has allowed us to leverage the resources we have in a way that will make the biggest impact,” says Polanco Sorto, emphasizing that her team can spend more time on more strategic elements with manual research a thing of the past. “We have the luxury of having a team that is mighty, small, and nimble; we use our resources in the best, most strategic way possible, and Manifest Climate has helped reduce our administrative burden.”
Gore Mutual chose Manifest Climate for ease of use and in-house expertise
With multiple ESG software platforms and consulting agencies available, Gore Mutual prioritized two things when selecting Manifest Climate: ease of use and in-house expertise.
“Firstly, the platform is easy to use,” says Polanco Sorto. Manifest Climate’s user-friendly interface makes it easy for teams to digest thousands of data points and get actionable insights in minutes. This intuitive interface makes an immediate impact and ensures any team members interested in a company’s climate journey can get involved.
Another key deciding factor for Gore Mutual was Manifest Climate’s history as a climate consulting firm (turned software provider). “You know the expertise is there,” says Polanco Sorto. “A lot of ESG solutions don’t have people in their business that really understand ESG and climate change.” Polanco Sorto appreciates Manifest Climate’s history as a consulting firm and knows the platform is built on a wealth of knowledge across climate lawyers and consultants.
Gore Mutual uses Manifest Climate to give executives and board members total confidence in their climate journey
For Gore Mutual, like other organizations, peer benchmarking has the added benefit of giving executives and board members confidence that the progress they are making is comparable to the company’s size in the industry. The Gore Mutual team was able to demonstrate that the company is meeting OSFI B15 requirements and reveal how they are performing relative to their industry peers.
“Oftentimes that’s what executives want,” says Polanco Sorto, “the confidence that we’re on the right track. And that’s what Manifest Climate gives our team.”
CONCLUSION
How Gore Mutual is using Manifest Climate to look into the future
For the Purpose and Sustainability team at Gore Mutual, Manifest Climate has been more than just a time-saving tool. “It’s like having a researcher and project manager on standby,” says Polanco Sorto.
As they continue their journey to become a purpose-driven, digitally led national insurer, Gore Mutual will continue to leverage the insights that Manifest Climate yields in three ways: to create and implement an action plan to move ahead with OSFI B15 compliance, to bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to get to, and to comply with an increasing number of overlapping climate disclosures, such as ISSB. With Manifest Climate at their disposal, the team plans to map out a multi-year disclosure plan of what needs to be done and where they need to focus their attention next.
Gain a climate advantage with Manifest Climate
Manifest Climate is an AI-powered platform that helps companies close disclosure gaps and supercharge their climate strategies. Our platform is the world’s best at assessing climate disclosures. We help to highlight your climate disclosure and management gaps across multiple standards and frameworks and provide data-driven recommendations for improvement. Our technology helps your team reduce time spent on manual research by 99%, improving precision and consistency as a result.
