Having recently attended a summit on sustainability and ESG practices, I’ve been having an internal conversation around change and what it means. Funny enough, ‘Who moved my cheese?’ has been on my to read pile for a while now. Writing this piece is a reflection of the summit I attended, but it is also an invitation to interrogate the concept of change as well as our own personal relationships with it.

The timing of the rise of ESG is quite peculiar. Before it we had EHS, sustainability, and CSR, and approximately thirty years later, now we have ESG, in a world that is still reeling from the effects of a devastating pandemic. But perhaps this is just the opportunity we need at change. The crisis left us with deep loss and the scars to prove it; however, it cannot be that we have endured so much just to ‘restore factory settings’ and go back to how we did things before. Reverting to the default cannot be our approach at restabilising our worlds. As someone who started my working career weeks before the pandemic hit South Africa and we were plunged into a lockdown, I’ve tried to seek out the opinions of those who have had a taste of both worlds as my opinion is somewhat bias.

For the first two years, my working experience was fully remote, now followed by a hybrid environment. The first month of our graduate program was filled with moves and roommate searches in an attempt to find accommodation with the shortest and most convenient commute to work. But then COVID, lockdown, and change happened. COVID brought a number of things to a halt, but at the same time, it gifted us with choices. For a fresh cohort of graduates, it allowed us to choose where and how to live. The following two months saw the unravelling of all plans and arrangements. Those far from home returned; those who had sought accommodation closer to the CBD moved further away to cheaper and more spacious housing, with space for a home office. It is almost four years later the conversation is being revisited, as returning to the office becomes a contentious point.

In a world where being politically correct and socially appropriate becomes an increasingly tighter rope to walk, the S in ESG calls for open, honest, and uncomfortable engagements. Day two of the summit created a platform for such conversations. I was taken aback at the level of engagement and the vulnerability of both the panel and the audience. Living in a whole and recovering from the pandemic requires constant learning and adaptation. COVID introduced many of us to remote and hybrid working, which has far-reaching implications, both positive and negative. I was pleasantly surprised that the discussion stretched beyond preferences but to the real, daily lives of people and the ripple effect that actions and decisions have. Child development was placed under the spotlight.

Having parents more present in the home has increased engagement within the family and allowed parents to be more active and involved with their children, from school drives and homework supervision, to having greater control over family nutrition. Even social media is abuzz with “pandemic babies” who seem to be advancing rapidly in their development, from lifting their heads to uttering first words. Parents in the audience admitted that they were able to hold and play with their little ones more, whereas previously the hired help was swamped with caring for both the home and the children. A dad voiced that he came to discover that his son displayed signs of a learning impairment while helping him with his homework during time he would have otherwise spent stuck in traffic traveling to and from work. He has since sought help for his son, resulting in a proud dad and a more confident son. The importance of time was highlighted during this session. Time is a limited resource but when spent efficiently, the benefits are endless.

A point that was initially raised by parents but was relatable to all was the financial impact of hybrid/ remote working. The lady who raised this point beamed with gratitude at the change in the quality of life her family now enjoys due to reduced expenses related to outsourcing forms of childcare, including school transportation, school aftercare facilities, as well as nannies. It has also been reported that women who had otherwise not participated in the workforce due to having to choose between being a parent and being an employee have been able to return to the workforce in one form or another. In addition to reduced fuel costs related to travelling to the office, this has affected expectations related to salaries and incomes due to reduced overall expenses, a change welcomed by employers as it reduces the pressure on them ever so slightly.

Vulnerability: in order to make a real impact we need to learn to be vulnerable but also respectful of those who are. We need to know what we are dealing with in order to come up with solutions that work. Another lady stood and spoke softly, she asked, “What do you do if your body works against you?”. I was confused, but it seems that many in the room knew exactly what she was talking about. She was referring to the biological clock, particularly when the clock strikes menopause. Women climb the corporate ladder, juggling period pains, menstrual complications, and pregnancy during their childbearing years (amongst other social challenges). As these years pass, these women are approaching the peaks of their careers, but they are also approaching menopause.

Reaching positions of leadership, importance, and influence at a time where mental, physical, and emotional changes all come rolling in at once could be labelled "self-sabotage." This was a very uncomfortable conversation, but a very important one. In a world obsessed with equality, equal pay, and gender rights, it could feel like taking a hundred steps back to admit that we may not be equal after all—biologically, that is. We deserve equal treatment as human beings; we are equal, but we are different. In our differences, we have important contributions to make, but we require an environment that brings out the best in us.

The environmental and governance parts of ESG can be measured and compared. But what about social? Success in social realms is difficult to measure as it means different things to different people. In a world striving to celebrate an individual, surely we should let the individual be just that, an individual. A single human being that is different from all the others. Being different means that we each have something to offer that no one else does, and not being given the opportunity robs us of making an impact but also robs the world of experiencing what we bring.