ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) - an approach to managing a company that demonstrates how sustainable the business is in the long term. In simple terms, ESG provides an answer to the question: How reliably does the company manage environmental, social, and managerial risks, and can it operate stably in the face of changes, such as the requirements of banks, investors, new market rules, and expectations of partners.
Today, ESG in Kazakhstan is an increasingly important topic for businesses. Companies are facing ESG requirements when seeking financing, participating in tenders, collaborating with international partners, and operating within corporate groups. As a result, ESG has become an integral part of a company's management strategy.
Which includes ESG: E, S и G
The ESG agenda did not emerge in business due to a moral choice or external pressure from activists. Rather, it was a response to the market's accumulated experience of errors, where seemingly successful companies were actually unstable. Financial crises, environmental incidents, high-profile scandals, and bankruptcies showed that traditional financial reporting captured the past but poorly predicted the future. The problem was not with the numbers themselves, but with the fact that they did not reflect the key risks. Companies could show stable profits while having critical dependencies on environmentally vulnerable assets, toxic corporate cultures, or weak governance, which increased uncertainty for investors and creditors and led to higher costs of capital.
In this context, ESG has become an important tool for business management and analysis. It emerged as an attempt to address a simple but significant question: how well can a company operate and create value over the long term amidst various changes.
ESG reporting and non-financial disclosure: why has it become essential?
At an early stage, ESG was seen as a voluntary initiative. Companies published non-financial reports, selected indicators that were convenient for them, and emphasized their strengths. For businesses, ESG was a relatively inexpensive tool for improving their reputation, which did not directly affect their financial decisions.
However, the situation has begun to change. ESG data is now used not only for communication, but also for risk analysis. Banks, institutional investors, and insurance companies have realized that without understanding environmental, social, and management factors, they cannot accurately assess the probability of default, the stability of cash flows, or the real value of assets.
At this point, ESG has begun to play an economic role. It has become an integral part of the decision-making process, firstly on the part of investors and lenders, and then within companies themselves.
Hence the increased demand for:
- ESG reporting with a clear structure and logical indicators;
- comparability of data (so that companies can be compared);
- Verifiability of figures through documents and internal controls;
- Accurate wording in public materials, such as websites, presentations, and reports.
ESG - managed process, rather than a one-time publication.
In practice, ESG involves collecting data using various methods, verifying the accuracy of the data, publicly disclosing certain indicators, and withholding others at the request of a bank or partner.
Companies often make mistakes in typical situations:
- There are no specific deadlines or responsibilities for ESG data;
- There is no established method for calculating indicators;
- There is no supporting documentation for the figures;
- The contracts already include ESG obligations, but these are not monitored within the company;
- Public statements on the site have not been legally agreed upon and therefore carry a risk of legal claims and potential reputational consequences.
Therefore, it would be more appropriate to base the ESG approach on a combination of legal, financial, and accounting expertise. This would ensure that the formulations are accurate, the figures can be verified, and the documents are consistent.
The growing interest in ESG has quickly revealed a fundamental problem: the lack of uniformity and consistency in data makes it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions. If each company defines for itself what constitutes emissions, social risks, or management quality, then ESG loses its ability to be analyzed. Therefore, the next step, standardization, has become necessary. Uniform approaches to collecting, calculating, and disclosing ESG data have allowed:
- compare companies within the industry.
- identify real sources of risks, not declarations.
- reduce manipulation and formal compliance.
This was a turning point for business. ESG has begun to require not only statements, but also built-in processes supported by data, methodologies, and internal controls. Errors, gaps, or inconsistencies in information disclosure were no longer perceived as image inaccuracies, but as signs of poor governance.
As standardization progressed, ESG became increasingly perceived as a continuation of classic risk management and compliance, but outside the usual financial framework. Environmental factors began to be considered as operational and regulatory risks, social — as risks to business productivity and sustainability, and managerial-as direct factors of investment reliability.
It is important to understand that ESG does not create new risks, it makes visible those that previously remained outside the reporting framework. That is why companies that ignore ESGsoften face unexpected increases in the cost of capital, difficulties in negotiations with banks, or loss of interest from partners rather than sudden demands.
Practical measurement for business in Kazakhstan
For Kazakhstani companies, ESG is a gradually emerging business reality. Companies that work with international markets, attract external financing, or interact with the quasi-public sector already face requests for ESGdata in the framework of loan agreements, investment transactions, and procurement procedures.
Even if the formal requirements are still limited, the market is moving towards greater transparency. Banks are starting to take non – financial factors into account when evaluating borrowers, investors are starting to take them into account when making decisions, and the regulatory environment is gradually increasing disclosure requirements. For businesses, this means that ESG becomes a matter of preparedness.
Why is ESG always a project?
In practice, ESG is almost never implemented by the efforts of a single department. As the requirements grow, sustainable development ceases to be a function of PR or an individual specialist. It takes on the character of a complex management task, where strategy, operational activities, risk management, data and reporting intersect.
Environmental indicators require correct methods of data collection and quality control. Social — formalized approaches to personnel management, labor protection, and interaction with communities. Management aspects — transparent decision-making processes, responsibility allocation, and internal control.
The resulting ESGreporting becomes a reflection of how well the business is managed, not just how "trending"it is.
In such a model, the area of responsibility is of key importance. Legal expertise is necessary to correctly interpret the requirements, assess obligations to counterparties and regulators, and minimize the risks of incorrect information disclosure. Financial and accounting expertise is critical for the choice of calculation methodology, comparability of ESGindicators with financial statements, and integration of data into management systems.
Without this, the ESG remains a collection of disparate initiatives that are difficult to defend in front of an investor, auditor, or board of directors.
Ultimately, ESG is a way to show the market that a company:
- understands its long-term risks.
- manages them systematically.
- and it is able to adapt to changes in the environment.
The question for businesses today is not whether ESG is needed. It is when the company starts building this system consciously-in advance or under pressure from external requirements. And it is this choice that determines the cost, sustainability and manageability of the business in the coming years.
Our company wishes prosperity to the business and expresses support for business projects of high complexity, and to understand the current level of readiness, it is enough to answer the following questions:
- Are those responsible for ESG and deadlines assigned?
- Are the data sources defined (HR/Labor protection/Finance/Production/Procurement)?
- Are there any ESG terms in contracts with banks and counterparties?
- Are public statements checked for legal risks?
- Is it clear what is disclosed publicly and what is disclosed on request?
- Do you have a 3-6-month improvement plan?
If the result of responses from 4 or less is no, we recommend ESG audit or rapid diagnostics to quickly build a clear action plan.
17.02.2026