Jen Singhal Looks at ESG Framework as Future-Proofing Driver of Present Day Innovation
Jason McRobbie

Aside from looming legislation and regulations, the push for Environmental Social Governance (ESG) has been accompanied by a growing realization among progressive companies that those three words can be distilled even further—smart business. As a prior corporate-commercial litigator who spent the past decade helping grow Benevity into a global, CSR success story before recently founding her own consultancy, few know how to put ESG to work like Jen Singhal. We sit down to talk about how to unlock ESG’s potential today, and why you likely already have, at least in part.
Key Takeaways:
- ESG, when done well, is not separate from your business strategy and it will be integrated into how the business operates. Organizations likely already have strong foundational elements for ESG in place if they have made investments in key business areas such as good governance, risk management and best-in-class HR programs and practices.
- The future-focused values and risk management principles inherent in ESG overlap with what investors are keen to review as part of any standard due diligence exercise that tech companies can expect to undergo at exit.
- The ROI of ESG commitments have become increasingly apparent, particularly in realms of talent and workforce management.
- CSR, or Corporate Social Responsibility, is one component of a thriving ESG program. Other aspects for technology companies will typically include employee experience, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), cybersecurity, privacy, Board governance, compliance, risk management, ethical sourcing and, of course, environmental impacts and carbon footprint.
Call it ESG if you must. Amidst a sea of acronyms and good intentions, the best way to look at ESG might just be as the road to brighter futures.
As a corporate litigator at the start of her career, Jen Singhal was energized by helping companies navigate through crisis and commercial disputes to get to resolution. Over time, she grew to wonder how she might help leaders avoid some of those “darker” days in business so that they could focus more fully on advancing their mission.
Having recently founded Jennifer Singhal Consulting at the start of 2024, she is now doing exactly that—helping purpose-driven companies get future ready by strengthening business from the ground up to avoid as many dark days as possible—while turning on plenty of bright idea bulbs in the process.
Building Upon Benevity: A Disruptive Dream into Action
What Jen brings to the table is a lifetime of aligned experience garnered between then and now—having stepped in at the ground floor at Benevity, a Canadian B2B SaaS CSR platform valued at over $1 billion with the addition of equity partners in 2020—that laid the foundation for the work she does today.
“I have a broad basket of skills and experience developed over the last nine years at Benevity, a thought-leader and disruptor in the CSR and Corporate Purpose categories. When I first joined Benevity in 2014, leveraging the power of technology to help enterprise companies supercharge their CSR programs was ground-breaking with potential to meaningfully change the world for good. In looking back at that experience, I still pinch myself,” said Jen. “I came in at the ground floor of this thought-leading innovative company with a disruptive concept and deep commitment to balancing profit and purpose to amplify global social impact. I was given an incredible opportunity to do exactly what I set out to do when I left private practice—to help global corporations become stronger and more sustainable businesses with strategies focused on delivering strong returns both for business and society writ large.”
As a CSR software company with a platform serving 1000+ leading brands and hundreds of thousands of non-profits, while disbursing billions of charitable dollars around the world—$10 billion to date—Jen found herself leveraging her legal and risk background across teams as the company scaled, using compliance and regulatory frameworks as key accelerators for that growth. It gave her an appreciation of the true power of ESG.
ESG an Accelerator of Innovation
“It’s interesting. What you see happening in the ESG movement globally is the acceleration of its adoption through new regulation, which is a positive development on one hand because it will make ESG a standard requirement for businesses from a compliance lens,” said Jen before speaking to the true worth factor. “However, compliance with regulation alone doesn’t speak to the broader opportunity that ESG presents in building new pathways to competitive differentiation and deeper resilience over the long term. ESG encourages organizations to broaden its focus to consider the impact of its operations on stakeholders other than shareholders, including consumers, its workforce, communities, and the planet and in doing so, creates conditions to generate value for that entire stakeholder ecosystem over a long-term time horizon.”
It is this angle of ESG that has spurred Jen’s ongoing journey and makes her a welcome addition to stages such as the upcoming Tech Talent North. After all, she knows that ESG is still an emerging discipline in business, but she is committed to dispelling the myth that ESG is anything other than what it is—something you are likely already investing in if you are focused on strengthening your business and accelerating growth – whether that is for expansion, another round of investment or eventual exit.
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Flexible Framework Also Results-Oriented
“ESG, at its core, is just another type of business framework. We leverage frameworks of all kinds and varieties for different purposes, and they help us to clarify and organize our thinking which assists with generating forward momentum towards change. Under the ESG framework, we evaluate existing business strategies, specific risks, and opportunities across these three broad categories—environmental, social and governance—to understand what levers exist to make our business better and stronger,” said Jen. “Those levers will look different from business to business because of the specific context in which each business operates and how that context creates unique impacts for different stakeholders.”
Those impacts are not only measurable, Jen notes, but multiple.
“ESG is useful as a business improvement strategy because it is flexible and malleable, but also results-oriented. It is responsive to differences in business strategies, structures, and operations under a central overarching premise that investments will not just generate positive social impact, but also long-term value creation.”
Of CSR, ESG and Umbrellas
And while ESG may sound like CSR to some, Jen is quick to point out that while CSR is a key component of ESG, it is not ESG itself. CSR, or Corporate Social Responsibility, fits nicely under the “S” umbrella of ESG.
“Some folks confuse CSR and ESG because, well, they’re both three-letter acronyms referencing something in the corporate “goodness” realm,” said Jen. “As ESG leaders, we don’t always help ourselves with all of the lingo and acronyms, but in a nutshell CSR can be understood as a key component of a robust ESG program.”
“It typically sits under the S or Social because it references programs relating to social good—corporate-giving and grant-making, employee volunteerism, community investment and workplace giving, for example,” said Jen. “These programs are not geared solely towards strengthening brand and reputation in the market, but also in helping to improve and enhance the overall employee value proposition. Employees want to work for companies that are visibly investing and authentically committed to leaving the world a better place than they found it. So, there is some overlap, but ultimately CSR is one of the many engines that brings ESG to life.”
“So, CSR serves ESG but they’re not the same,” said Jen. “ESG is broader as it includes environmental, social and governance factors. The “G” in ESG, for the other hand, doesn’t always get a lot of attention because governance is one of those technical terms that can be a little bit inaccessible. Many folks I’ve spoken to will ask me, “What does the “G” in ESG even mean?’”
G in ESG is Good for Business
Rest assured, Jen notes, that if your organization has undergone due diligence exercises as part of an equity raise or in preparation of an upcoming exit or IPO, you likely already have governance policies and practices that fall under this category.
“Governance is the backbone of your business—it considers how your Board is constituted, what policies and practices are in place to ensure the Board is meeting its fiduciary duty, and whether the organization is compliant with the laws that apply to it, for example. All these areas will typically be reviewed in a standard due diligence exercise as part of an equity raise, so it makes good business sense to focus on the G in ESG along with the E and S.”
As for what makes up the backbone of any ESG program, Jen is quick to note that most businesses already have the groundwork laid.
ESG Already a Work in Progress
“I think what companies need to realize is that they might already have the building blocks of an effective ESG program without knowing it,” said Jen. “We may be talking about a game of inches in terms of building out a leading ESG program that accelerates your organization’s growth strategy, not necessarily making huge shifts in your existing business strategy or investment plan.”
“If you talk to tech companies who have gone through private equity raises and had a series of exits, they have gone through a due diligence process with those potential investors. If you look at the due diligence questionnaires and compare it to an ESG framework there is much that overlaps in certain areas. So, without knowing, I think many of us have been in the business of ESG for a while,” said Jen. “Really what we’re doing with this evolving framework and these regulations coming down the pipeline from Europe is fine tuning our strategies and making intentional investment decisions around areas that are positive for business growth as well as people and planet.”
A Powerfully Positive Differentiator
As for the difference that fine tuning makes?
“When we’re building and enhancing business operations using an ESG lens, we’re not just looking for opportunities in core business areas that, for example, might increase sales of our standard goods and services, but homing in on areas where improvements generate a positive impact for people and the planet at the same time. We are building businesses that are a net positive for society that also thrive financially,” said Jen. “It’s that small shift in thinking about strategy that leads to meaningful business and social ROI.”
Ultimately, from a talent perspective, it can prove a powerful attractor.
“What we know through the reams of data we now have on the relationship between corporate purpose and employee engagement, is that employees want to work for organizations that are doing the right thing. Purpose and positive social impact can be a massive differentiator in the talent market. Having strong ESG and CSR programs in place and effectively communicating the impact of those programs to your workforce generates positive sentiment - both with your existing employees, and your potential or future employees,” said Jen. “It’s like putting up an antenna and saying to the market, ‘This company has a culture where we care about more than just productivity and hours spent working. We care about providing excellent products and services to the community, about being a successful, thriving business while also generating a positive impact for the entire stakeholder community.’”
Thriving in a World of ‘AND’
Jen points out that same holds true from the opposite end of the spectrum, wherein consumers are seeking the same with their purchasing power.
“ESG is about enhancing business performance and competitiveness in the market, while also—and I love this space because it’s always an AND—creating a net positive impact for people and planet. That those two objectives can be met at the same time in committing to balancing profit and purpose and that in doing so, the business is optimized for the future is exciting,” said Jen.
It is this duality that fuels Jen’s passion for the work she does, coupled with a top-notch road map for helping others evolve their own ESG frameworks and organizational evolutions.
“As a bit of a ‘Jill of all Trades’, I help purpose-driven companies and non-profit partners leverage ESG to translate strategies into tactical roadmaps for enhancing business and social ROI. I support executive teams and senior leaders get ready for the future. If you are a tech company, for example, maybe your future objective is a potential exit or equity raise to support your growth strategy, so we would look at how a robust ESG program can make you more attractive at that stage of your journey, for example”, said Jen. “Putting in a program that marries strategy with execution with regular assessment and reporting cycles and strong cross-functional collaboration will help your organization make data-based decisions to inform go-forward strategic plans. This helps business move through change to become stronger and more resilient over time, so that when you go to bring on another investor or go to IPO you are better optimized and well-positioned.”
Explore BCorps for ESG Exemplars
While pointing out that no two ESG programs will look alike—and so what is working for Benevity won’t necessarily translate for your organization—Jen points to the wealth of comparative frameworks available to explore.
“I think the best way to find great exemplars in this space is to look companies up through B Corps—it’s a thriving movement with thousands of global organizations that have committed to dual missions of profit and purpose, who have submitted to assessment and become certified against a global standard that reflects those commitments and investments. Benevity was one of the earliest organizations in Canada to become BCorps certified, but the BCorp movement has really taken off the last few years”, said Jen. “What’s useful is that the results of the assessment are published publicly on BCorp’s website, so if you are an organization that is in a particular subgroup of tech, for example, you can check to see if a comparable organization is BCorp certified, and look to see where they have been focusing their efforts, and take some clues from that into what you could leverage for your program as well.
That said, Jen notes, a successful ESG program does require a firm commitment from leadership and a willingness to take a good, hard look within. As a lawyer and risk leader, she emphasizes ‘the tone from the top’ as a foundational driver for building a successful ESG program.
Here is what Jen suggests to get an ESG program off the ground formally:
Step one is to make a business case that resonates with your board of directors, your executive teams and to the senior leaders in your business – and not just from a ‘right thing to do’ perspective - but also to home in on the tangible, actionable business benefits the organization can expect to see as a result of its investments. There is a plethora of data, statistics, and examples available to help connect the dots between ESG and business returns.
Step two is to look at what you are already doing. Get clarity around where you stand across these three letters - ESG. The E or “environment” in tech tends to be a little bit more nascent than the S and the G, which is why the session at Tech Talent North diving into how People Ops leaders can leverage their People programs to enhance their organization’s “E” offering is going to be exciting.
“If we go back to the central premise that ESG is not separate from your business operation—it is your business operation, there are risks in choosing not to embed ESG into the organization’s DNA. If you are not investing in improving your business operations in a way that allows you to be sustainable over the long term, the organization runs an increased risk of losing market share and not being as attractive as it could be on exit,” said Jen. “That’s because ESG helps to identify risks to business sustainability and can highlight vulnerable areas. If, for example, the organization has not invested in DEI meaningfully, that might suggest to a potential investor that there are increased risks ranging from challenges in attracting and retaining top talent to risks around bias and discrimination in a worst-case scenario. These risks could influence decision-making or valuation so investing in strengthening this area of business has a direct link to the ability of the business to execute on its overarching strategy”.
Tech Industry a Natural for Leading the ESG Curve
As for the tone from the top within Canada’s tech industry, Jen sees a natural synergy with the true intent of ESG.
“Technology is innately innovative, progressive, and trailblazing at its best and ESG is an emerging business strategy that carves a path to a prosperous future. Tech companies that develop and invest in ESG early on the curve have a huge opportunity to demonstrate that they are that innovative thought leader and progressive company” said Jen, before circling back on the aspect of ESG which holds the greatest untapped potential for tech—the letter E.
“The E in ESG is a great example of an opportunity to blaze a new trail and capture that first mover advantage. Environmentally-focused programs in the tech sector might be a little underdeveloped in some areas at the moment because there is a perception that technology does not have the same environmental impact as other industries – say retail or energy – and therefore is not as material,” said Jen. “There is an incredible strategic opportunity for tech organizations right now to leverage the passion of their people for making difference in the world on issues of climate change and sustainability and bring that environmental focus into their CSR and people programs to strengthen the employee value proposition as well as the organization’s brand and reputation in the market. Organizations that do this effectively will be set up to be the standard-setter and innovator in this space and stand to gain from both a business and social lens. That’s what we’re going to be exploring together with a top notch panel in the session I am moderating at Tech Talent North. It’s going to be a great discussion.”
“Above all, my dream and drive right now is to help purpose-driven organizations build great companies for the future. Technology companies are uniquely positioned to be leaders of the ESG movement in Canada and I love working with those business leaders to break new ground. That said, I’m also passionate about supporting organizations across sectors that are committed to making a positive impact on society as a means of accelerating their top-line strategies,” said Jen. “Helping purpose-driven organizations become high performing, happy, healthy and sustainable over a long term is what energizes me in my work”.
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