Overview

If you are considering participating in the CSA for the first time and don't know where to start, keep reading for some helpful insights, provided by your peers.

Start Small and Build

1. Adopt a Long-Term Strategy: Don't try to tackle everything in the first year. Begin with what you're already publishing and gradually expand from there.

   1. Top Tip: If your company already publishes an annual sustainability report, use that as a starting point and build on it by adding new data and initiatives over time. Add additional disclosure where you already have it, you might have more than you think.

Deep Dive into the Learning Opportunity 

1. Understand the Questionnaire: Familiarize yourself with the types of questions asked and the scoring methodology. This will help you provide accurate and comprehensive answers.

   1. Top Tip: Review past questionnaires that S&P Global might have completed based on your public reporting in the CSA Portal, alongside the Assessment Focus detailed in the CSA Handbook. These resources will help you understand what information is required and how it will be evaluated. Reviewing previous assessments can provide you with a gap analysis before you’ve even begun work.

   2. Top Tip: In addition to the CSA Handbook, the CSA Weights document is a useful resource, to help you understand the criteria weights, that you can use to prioritize your work on those that are considered most material (highest weighted). 

2. Use all available CSA Resources: The online portal provides a wealth of supporting documents. Leverage the guidance and resources provided by the CSA as a starting point for answering the questionnaire.

   1. Top Tip: In addition to the CSA Handbook, access support materials including past webcasts and the range of tutorials. 

   2. Top Tip: Utilize the CSA's Benchmarking Database to see who the top performing companies are. You can visit their public reporting to learn about their approach. As a first-time participant you will also have free access to the Peer Practices Database that points you directly to relevant publicly available company examples.

   3. Top Tip: Reach out to the CSA Helpline for question clarifications if you’re confused about what information to provide. Furthermore, if you think a question doesn’t apply to your company please reach out for confirmation. The CSA uses industry specific questionnaires, so while all questions should apply to your company, there might be instances where your company takes a different approach from the general industry. In such cases we encourage companies to reach out so that S&P industry analysts can clarify how to accommodate your approach as part of the answer. 

   4. Top Tip: Never choose the NAP answer option without checking with us first if it will be accepted.

Gather the Right Team 

1. Secure Leadership Commitment: Ensure top executives and colleagues support your company’s participation in the CSA. 

   1. Top Tip: Arrange a kick-off meeting with senior leaders to explain the importance of the CSA for your company and gain their support for the initiative. This will provide some leverage internally, when asking for support from other teams. 

2. Promote Cross-Divisional Collaboration: Engage various departments within your company to gather the necessary information. This promotes cross-divisional collaboration and ensures that all aspects of your business are covered.

   1. Top Tip: The Portal allows you to easily provide access to colleagues filling in the CSA questionnaire. You can focus their attention on the topics you need their help on, by removing access to other criteria/questions. 

   2. Top Tip: Use the rationale provided in the question guidance for each question to explain the importance of the topic to your company’s business and how sustainability and business strategies are linked.

   3. Top Tip: Where relationships don’t exist, there lies an opportunity to network and grow your team’s prominence across the business, by establishing strong relationships with new divisions in your company. 

   4. Top Tip: Create a cross-functional team with representatives from different departments to work together on the CSA submission.

   5. Top Tip: Use the Benchmarking Database to harness your team’s competitive spirit by showing them what your competitors already do. Backing that up by providing them with hands on peer practices (using the database) makes solutions clearer and easier to implement. Colleagues often think that what needs to be implemented and disclosed is more complex than what is being requested. 

   6. Top Tip: Hold training sessions for key stakeholders to explain the CSA process and how it aligns with your company's sustainability strategy. For example, work with the IT department to gather data on energy consumption and collaborate with the HR department to collect information on employee engagement initiatives.

   7. Top Tip: Become the source of information for your company. Many companies use the Portal as their go to repository of sustainability information, enabling them as a helpful internal resource should they get questions from other divisions. 

3. Communicate Throughout the Process: Develop a communication plan to keep all relevant departments informed and engaged throughout your CSA participation.

   1. Top Tip: Add individuals from different departments to the CSA Portal early, so they can get comfortable with the operating system. Once they have been added as a User, assign them specific questions, so their contribution is clear. For more information on how to do this see the Accounts section of the Portal Guide. You can also set their email notification settings, so that they only receive CSA related notifications if relevant for them. 

   2. Top Tip: Arrange a Portal demonstration with your colleagues and the CSA Helpline to ensure everyone gets up to speed quickly.

Set Realistic Expectations 

1. Focus on the Process Rather Than the Results: See the CSA as a learning journey and think critically about the improvements your company can make, rather than just the final assessment score.

   1. Top Tip: Use the tutorial, How to View Your Company's "Assessed" Version of the CSA to identify questions and criteria to focus on for implementing changes that can benefit your company. 

   2. Top Tip: The section ‘Analysis of Results’ in the ‘How To’ Guide provides useful guidance for how you can complete your own gap analysis, using freely available information.

   3. Top Tip: View your participation in the CSA as a free health check of your disclosure. The questions the CSA asked are based on +25 years of experience and an approach to sustainability through the eyes of an investor. The feedback you get from your CSA results will show you if you coherently and unambiguously explain how your company links business and sustainability strategies. By providing the data and supporting evidence the CSA asks for, you can be assured that you are able to make a convincing case with all stakeholders interested in these topics. 

2. Set Long-Term Goals: Establish realistic objectives for your first year of participation and develop a long-term plan for improving your CSA results.

   1. Top Tip: Communicate to your team that the first year is a learning experience and focus on setting achievable goals for future assessment rounds.

Taking these considerations into account, your company can successfully navigate the CSA process. But more importantly, your participation in the CSA is a tool to make meaningful progress towards your sustainability goals and this should ultimately be the focus for your company. 

We wish you the best of success as you start your CSA journey!