Norberto Odebrecht Foundation interviews one of the founders of the ESG Antiracist Movement

Norberto Odebrecht Foundation interviews one of the founders of the ESG Antiracist Movement, environmental manager Naira Santa Rita Wayand

In a country where 54% of the population is black or brown, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, 2014), To talk about ESG necessarily includes making commitments to racial equality. After all, the acronym represents the efforts of organizations, companies, and governments to execute actions that strengthen the advancement of environmental agendas, Governance.

[Understand more about what ESG is by clicking here].

But the challenge lies not in addressing the issue only in events, publications, or discussions, but in taking an anti-racist stance starting with the very teams responsible for the ESG activities of companies and organizations.

“Sin diversidad de raza, región, género y edad, los equipos de ESG están reproduciendo lo que dicen que luchan”.

Encouraging this attitude is precisely the reason for the creation of the Movimento ESG Antirracista, founded this year by Rio de Janeiro environmental manager Naira Santa Rita Wayand, São Paulo administrator Bryan Chiarello, and Pará forest engineer Wallacy Barreto. To talk about the constitution and future of the initiative, the Norberto Odebrecht Foundation interviewed Naira Santa Rita, one of the founders of the Movement and elected in 2022, uma das Top Voice Sustentabilidade no LinkedIn.

FNO: How does your work with ESG, climate and social responsibility begin?

Naira: I am a climate displacement. In 2022, I survived the rains in the region of Petrópolis, in Rio de Janeiro, and lost everything I had conquered in the last years. It is one thing to study about extreme weather events. It is another, very different thing to experience such an event.

Many people in my town, in my neighborhood, also lost everything – they just didn’t know that it was environmental racism. “Oh, it happens every year.” Sometimes one piece of information changes everything. And I needed to bring this discussion to more people.

So it is an important agenda for me, it is part of my journey. And I advocate a marriage of agendas: that of the corporate, institutional ESG, with that of community, grassroots mobilization.

FNO: What is the ESG Antiracism Movement? What does the initiative aim to achieve?

Naira: We want to decentralize and democratize the debate on ESG. Since 2004, when it came out, there was no movement to reflect on these commitments for the Brazilian reality. We need an ESG with the face of Brazil, which brings legitimacy to these narratives and gives opportunities for our people to develop this agenda with equity.

You have to have plurality in these teams. Without diversity in race, regionality, gender and age, the people who work with ESG are reproducing what they claim to fight.

Therefore, the Anti-racist ESG Movement is a dialogue table that prioritizes the plurality of narratives, based on 5 commitments: decentralize the ESG debate, raise awareness about the inclusion of non-white people, connect black and indigenous professionals in the area, support career development, and psychologically support these professionals. We want to promote discussions that will generate progress, that will encourage the industry to include non-white people. We need to have affirmative and intentional actions, we need to promote literacy about climate racism, we need social responsibility to stop being welfarist.

We have a huge road ahead of us. But we know the principles that underlie us.

FNO: And how can all this be accomplished?

Naira: From articulation, from influence. We don’t have all those answers, we want to sit down with people who also want solutions. And we know that people often move from the charge, from the crisis.

FNO: Does this mean that crises can help promote the ESG agenda? Wouldn’t they hinder the implementation of this commitment?

Naira: We all want to overcome crises – financial, environmental, social – in a more humane, less cruel way. The goal is always to come back better from a situation like this.

But how to come back better than we were? It is bringing sustainability and social responsibility as a strategy to survive crises. I don’t have all the answers, but for that, we need to focus on people. Companies have no face. If people stop identifying with it, companies lose their customers, their employees. Everything begins and ends in people.

“There are always institutions and people committed to anti-racism. Now you have to connect them and make this network effect.”

FNO: And this focus on people presupposes an anti-racist stance?

Naira: Yes. It is a moral and ethical responsibility to rewrite our history as humanity. We all have this responsibility, especially non-black and non-indigenous people.

There are always institutions and people committed to anti-racism. Now you have to connect them and make this network effect.

FNO: You said that the Movement also wants to help democratize ESG even for those who are not in the field. What does this mean? 

Naira: My rule of life is that all content needs to be understood by both a child and an expert on the subject. For those who have never had access to knowledge about these topics, we want to explain what ESG, social responsibility, climate change is in a way that will really bring an interest. We don’t need to talk about Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory to the population, that belongs in the reports. With people, we need to talk about how the climate crisis, how ESG directly impacts their lives.

The Anti-racist ESG Movement, then, also seeks to promote this education and demystify this acronym. The third sector already has this function of disseminating these guidelines, this social ABC. But are we really being effective in our messages?

FNO: For the Movement, is it possible to speak of a new definition of ESG?

Naira: I don’t think we have a different definition. What we believe is that the interpretation of what the ESG is, at present, is shallow.

The Movement brings a more systemic and comprehensive view of what these letters mean, what they represent for our reality. We advocate an analysis of what ESG is, and its incorporation into Brazilian reality in a profound way. Much better than just ‘performing’ the acronym, which creates no impact. The basics of basics do not foster impact. This is why we need to compare and promote different interpretations of what sustainable development means.