The “social” dimension of ESG: sustainable human resource management.

How can human resources be managed sustainably within a company, and what role does gender equality play?

ESG principles are spreading and gaining ever-increasing relevance for companies. They are becoming established not only as criteria for the sustainable management of a business, but also as factors capable of boosting a brand's competitive strength.

ESG criteria demand a reassessment of corporate management practices, which must tend towards a sustainability understood not solely in terms of the green transition, but also - and perhaps above all - in terms of the sustainable management of human resources, a need that now dominates the new labour market.

"Sustainable human resource management" builds on the foundations laid by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a programme of action signed by 193 UN Member States. The Agenda's goal is to make sustainability a priority in business and growth strategies, and in this respect the promotion of health and wellbeing is central to ensuring the conditions for human-capital development.

Sustainable human-resource management, however, risks remaining an empty label unless the concrete avenues for action available to companies in pursuing ESG principles are explored.

Within the "social" dimension of ESG, the first front of action is represented by all those "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Management" programmes that require companies to adopt an ad hoc strategy aimed not only at eliminating differences and breaking down stereotypes, but also - from a strictly business standpoint - at the economic advantage a company gains by embracing diversity and turning it into a genuine strength.

A second, in some ways broader - or rather, more cross-cutting - line of action is represented by corporate strategies aimed at reducing the "Gender Gap", understood as the social, economic, political and employment divide between men and women in our country.

Squarely within the ESG framework sits the UNI PdR 125:2022 Gender Equality Certification, which gives companies the tools to build a sustainable human-resource management system with respect to gender disparities and thus makes the company "ESG compliant" as regards the "social" pillar.

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