ESG practices to address environmental, societal and governance issues have emerged as powerful non-financial indicators to evaluate performances of businesses, in the last decade. The Covid-19 pandemic taught us how collective changes in consumer behaviour can make significantly impactful changes in global environmental challenges such as cutting down carbon emissions and limiting the acceleration of climate change. This has spurred a new wave of interest in both public and private sectors to invest in sustainability, social equity and energy-savings.

Agriculture is one of the sectors where ESG has had a huge impact and bigger returns, when implemented well. Here are some numbers to indicate how agriculture impacts all aspects of economy and business. Global estimate for the environmental cost of agriculture stands close to USD 3 trillion. It contributes to nearly a quarter of the global carbon footprint and provides livelihood to around 30% of the world’s population. Considering agriculture is vital to feed every one of the 8 billion people on the planet, it is a sector which has inspired innovation and still needs strong initiatives to maintain the fine balance in preserving our fragile ecosystems and increasing farm productivity in accordance with food demands.