Recently, the news about ESG (environmental, social, governance) high-paying recruitment has become the focus of heated discussions in the market, and talents in the ESG field seem to have become "sweet potatoes" in the recruitment market. Under the wind, many industries, including real estate, regard ESG as a new trend in mainstream development.

"There aren't many real professionals"

Recently, it was reported that a real estate company in Shenzhen offered an annual salary of up to 850.<> million yuan to recruit senior ESG managers/directors. The reporter saw a lot of high-paying ESG job information on many mainstream recruitment platforms, most of which involved listed companies, financial institutions, consulting companies and the real estate industry, and there were not a few positions with an annual salary of more than one million. Among them, many listed companies with ESG transformation needs "recruit people" with high salaries.

The staff of the recruitment platform told reporters that with the popularization of ESG concepts and the supervision of enterprises to disclose ESG information, a series of business needs have been extended around information disclosure, and the demand for talents in this field has doubled. However, there are not many professionals who really meet the relevant requirements, and high salaries are not a common phenomenon.

Some job seekers told reporters that many of the high-paying news of ESG positions circulating on the market is for eyeballs and attention. In fact, the salary of ESG positions is not as high as the public thinks, requiring many years of relevant work experience, and job seekers are required to have skills such as data analysis and report writing. The reporter searched on a number of mainstream recruitment platforms and found that taking first-tier cities as an example, ESG-related positions with an annual salary of 50,8000 yuan and above are almost all director management positions, while ordinary positions such as commissioners have a monthly salary of 1,<> to <>,<> yuan.

ESG helps companies open up new markets

An interviewee who is engaged in ESG related work in a listed company told reporters that as far as listed companies are concerned, the main work in the ESG field includes information disclosure, rating management and management improvement. "After the 'dual carbon' goal was proposed, the ESG management needs of enterprises have been further improved, especially during the annual report disclosure season, and the work is particularly busy."

Public information shows that the Hong Kong Stock Exchange issued the first version of the ESG Reporting Guidelines as early as 2012, which was revised in 2016 to make ESG information disclosure mandatory for listed companies. JLL believes that the mainland has actively carried out the work of improving the disclosure ESG information system, aiming to form a mandatory environmental information disclosure system by 2025 and add it to the reporting rules for listed enterprises. It can be seen that mainland listed companies will face more standardized disclosure requirements in the future.

An ESG manager of a real estate company in Shenzhen told reporters that in recent years, the awareness of ESG concepts has been rising, and more and more companies have begun to formulate ESG strategies. For real estate enterprises, in the whole process of real estate development industry chain, green development relies on innovative and green technology applications to promote the digital transformation of enterprises, such as BIM technology, energy management and control monitoring system platform, etc., through scientific and technological innovation to create new advantages of low carbon and low energy consumption, which is also the key to enhancing the core competitiveness of real estate enterprises in the future.

Han Jing, Senior Director of JLL Greater China Assessment Advisory Services, said: "The improvement of ESG performance is not achieved overnight, development requires long-term investment, you can choose to focus on key issues, improve the ESG management structure, formulate ESG policies and strictly implement them, and effectively improve corporate ESG performance. As far as real estate enterprises are concerned, such as green buildings, energy conservation and carbon reduction, product quality, safety management, and board diversity, etc. are all key areas worthy of attention for real estate enterprises. Housing enterprises can also actively explore the intelligent application of digitalization, intelligence and other scientific and technological means to improve work efficiency and control processes, which is more conducive to improving competitiveness and achieving high-quality transformation and development. ”

PwC believes that China's ESG ecosystem is maturing rapidly, with regulators, investors and policymakers actively raising the bar for sustainable corporate performance, but business leaders are increasingly recognizing the importance and value of assessing corporate performance not only through financial metrics, but also through ESG frameworks. Some companies have seized this business and strategic opportunity to establish a first-mover advantage in ESG assessment and disclosure, become market leaders, and open up entirely new markets for sustainable products and services.