International seminar in Porto Alegre launches project to facilitate financing for small and medium-sized companies

With companies increasingly under pressure to reduce emissions, Porto Alegre will be one of the Brazilian cities that will host two experts for an international seminar on risks and opportunities in ESG (corporate, environmental and social governance).

Felipe Gutteres, executive director of large corporations and CEO of arara.io, details that, on average, companies manage to control emissions of 30% within their operation. The other 70% involve the supply chain.

Therefore, specialists Ram Mahidhara and Sudhi Mukherjjee, both with 40 years of experience at IFC, the private arm of the World Bank, will be in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul for an international seminar on the 26th. sustainable financing of the arara.io supply chain.

—Large companies are already incorporating sustainable practices and processes, but this chain is made up of many small and medium-sized companies, with less access to resources. With the seminar, we are drawing the attention of these companies, with two guests who took care of emerging markets in the world for decades,” says Gutteres.

According to the entrepreneur, the objective is to discuss the practices being adopted in emerging markets, the difficulties companies face in analyzing their supply chains, and the concept of “counterparty risk”. He explains:

—If the supplier does not resolve ESG issues, the company assumes a risk on which it has no assessment. ESG is not an acronym for a fad, nor is it an academic discourse, financiers and investors.

Although he admits that, so far, there is “more foam than depth” in this debate, he considers that it will not dampen the strong movement of regulators, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), the stock exchange and the Central Bank:

—Our company is a fintech that has understood that supply chain financing can be the main driving force behind ESG. It is necessary to encourage suppliers to evolve in ESG through supply chain financing.. Understanding what is the difficulty in this monitoring is costly and time-consuming. Addressing this issue of superficial form is something that society no longer accepts, and carries a reputational risk.

Arara.io is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, but the company made a point of scheduling an event in Porto Alegre, as it sees many companies in the state that are very much in line with the principles of ESG and “others that have a path to follow”, to reinforce and bring the look of what can be done to broaden the framework to these values. Gutteres says that there are investment funds interested in these lines of financing.

By MARTA SFREDO on 20/01/2022

Source: https://gauchazh.clicrbs.com.br/colunistas/marta-sfredo/noticia/2022/01/surge-uma-arara-para-cuidar-de-70-das-emissoes-que-uma-empresa-sozinha-nao-controla-ckylwsymw0064015p84vtu688.html