ChatGPT's assessment of the FTSE 100s’ practices related to ESRS S1

By Linda Jarnhamn, Founder flow2thrive.

I spent the best of a Friday morning working with ChatGPT, and on setting up a custom GPT to conduct a detailed assessment of the top 20 FTSE 100 companies’ reporting practices and data related to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) S1, which focuses on the ‘‘Own Workforce’’.

The ESRS S1 standard ensures transparency and accountability in how companies manage and impact their workforce across various domains including, but not exclusively working conditions, health and safety, equal opportunities, and other work-related rights. You can find more information here. Whilst a EU directive, it also covers some companies outside of the EU.

I asked ChatGPT/the custom GPT three questions:

  1. To collect, summarise and categorise information on double materiality assessments (focus health & wellbeing) from FTSE 100 companies 2023 sustainability reports (open web search).

  2. To provide a risk rating (no specific criteria defined) for each company using the workforce related information found in the analysis above.

  3. For a custom GPT to collect, summarise and analyse data related health and wellbeing of employees from reports provided by the user and to list and rank companies in order of quality of the data provided and score each company related to the various factors required under ESRS Sections S1.

The result of the analysis?

The analysis revealed sometimes similar, yet sometimes very different answers with regards to the risk analysis.

All three resulted in informative summaries of the policies and practices outlined in corporate reports, with gaps and opportunities for improvements clearly outlined.

 
 

The conclusion?

The analysis of the companies’ adherence to the ESRS S1 standards reveals a concerted effort across all companies to improve transparency and accountability related to workforce management.

FTSE 100 companies are increasingly incorporating health and wellbeing into their double materiality assessments, recognising the dual impact on both their financial performance and impact on their workforce and wider society. This trend is expected to grow as regulatory frameworks continue to evolve, pushing companies to adopt more holistic and transparent sustainability (reporting) practices.

However, right now, whilst many reports are informative, they’re not yet hugely insightful. The rankings above (NOT formal rankings) are primarily based on input, practices, policies outlined in corporate reports... Hardly any of the reports provide insights into actual outcomes (apart from e.g. fatal incidents), i.e. the actual health, wellbeing and cognitive performance potential of their employees.

Each company demonstrates strengths in various aspects of the ESRS S1 criteria, yet there are common areas where improvements can be made.

In summary, companies could benefit from:

  • Increased Transparency: Across all companies, there is a need for more specific and insightful reporting on various metrics (some thoughts here, and more on this in the next blog post).

  • Enhanced Equal Opportunity Reporting: More comprehensive data on anti-discrimination efforts and inclusion initiatives will improve stakeholder confidence and accountability.

  • Improve Health and Safety Metrics: Some of the companies could enhance the detail and transparency of their health and safety performance indicators.

Thus, there is a clear opportunity for enhanced transparency, more detailed and better data to be included in the reports. By addressing these areas, companies can further strengthen their commitment to sustainable workforce management and set higher benchmarks within their industries.

Final conclusion?

The risk with risk is how it's classified and evaluated... The key sits in the type of questions you're asking and the prompts you're providing to conduct your analysis. There is no difference here between people and ChatGPT :-)

Thus, to allow for proper evaluation, classification and ratings around Human Sustainability, we need to be clear on the actual definition (not always the case), the type of risk we’re aiming to assess and report on, and then the criteria to be used.

This is what we're working on... to provide the world with more meaningful and insightful data on Human Sustainability. 

Linda Jarnhamn