By Lauren Potgieter, Country Manager at Infobip South Africa
South African businesses are increasingly realising that Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals can no longer be treated as a once‑a‑year reporting exercise. Instead, ESG has become an ongoing conversation requiring transparency, credible action and meaningful engagement with employees, customers, investors, regulators and the communities that shape a business’s licence to operate.
In South Africa, ESG has moved beyond compliance‑driven reporting. Stakeholders want to see whether commitments lead to real outcomes, especially in areas such as energy insecurity, unemployment, skills development, inequality, digital inclusion and the responsible use of technology.
A single annual update is no longer enough. Businesses need to show progress throughout the year and, equally importantly, actively listen and respond to what their stakeholders are telling them.
For any business serious about ESG, stakeholder engagement cannot be an afterthought. It needs to shape decisions, not simply support reporting. Insights from employees, clients, suppliers, investors and communities feed directly into business decisions. ESG is no longer about reporting intentions; it’s about demonstrating what you are doing and how you do business, every day.
Building trust from transparency
Compliance alone doesn’t earn trust. Any business can meet reporting requirements, but trust comes from being transparent about commitments, providing evidence of progress, and speaking openly about gaps and the work that is still underway. This matters in South Africa, where stakeholders know the difference between corporate promises and what they experience in their everyday lives.
Communication should build trust, understanding and meaningful connection. A report can share information, but ongoing engagement turns that information into trust. Stakeholders want to know what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, whether progress is being made and, crucially, if it isn’t, what you’re doing to address it.
One of the biggest challenges in ESG is ensuring that what you say can be backed by what you can prove. Reporting can easily become a tick‑box exercise, but if the underlying data across operations, supply chains and emissions isn’t accurate or consistent, it becomes almost impossible to communicate with confidence. The credibility of ESG communication depends on the quality and consistency of the data behind it.
Honesty goes a long way
This is where businesses need to be honest about both progress and gaps. Globally, this gap is well documented: EY’s 2026 Global Climate Action Barometer found that less than half of businesses (48%) have kept their emissions targets aligned with scientific guidance, and over two-fifths of those that revised their targets did so by weakening them, whether through lower ambition or delayed timelines. South Africa cannot afford that disconnect.
That honesty is far more credible than trying to present a perfect ESG story. Failing to achieve something immediately does not necessarily undermine trust if a business is open about the gap and the action it is taking to address it. And that’s the point: transparency builds trust. ESG isn’t about perfection; it’s about progress you can prove.
Today, ESG communication is still largely one‑directional: a report is published, an email goes out, information sits on a website, and stakeholders are expected to absorb it passively. But ESG information could be conversational: employees could ask about sustainability programmes, customers could use WhatsApp to understand initiatives, communities could offer feedback, and investors or suppliers could subscribe to updates.
Creating these mechanisms for people to ask questions, provide feedback and access relevant information can turn ESG from a broadcast into a genuine dialogue. This is where technology, and specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI), can play a transformative role.
AI can make verified ESG information easier to access and interact with, but only if used responsibly. That means strong guardrails around security, privacy, fairness, governance and continuous monitoring, ensuring systems share accurate, consistent information grounded in trusted data.
Responsible AI is about enabling people to ask questions, find trusted information and participate in the ESG conversation. Technology can become a bridge between reporting and engagement, turning static disclosures into dynamic, two‑way dialogue and giving stakeholders greater access to the information they need.
Embedding ESG in the business strategy
ESG only works when it is embedded in the business strategy, not treated as a parallel track, because it is not a separate initiative, but part of how organisations make decisions, lead and operate in their communities.
Those commitments must be tied to measurable targets, not abstract ambitions. Publishing targets reinforces intent and shows the direction a company is taking. At Infobip, for example, our near-term and net-zero emissions reduction targets were validated by the Science Based Targets initiative in 2025. We’ve committed to reducing absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 63% by 2035 and Scope 3 emissions by 66.3% in the same timeframe, both from a 2024 base year, with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across our value chain targeted by 2045.
Making ESG measurable is essential. There’s a big difference between saying you’re committed to reducing environmental impact and publishing clear, externally validated targets. Stakeholders also need ongoing feedback and clear reporting to see whether progress is being made, and if not, why.
Targets are only one part of the equation. Businesses also need credible data, transparent reporting and ongoing feedback to demonstrate whether they are actually making progress. The targets, the evidence and the conversation need to tell the same story.
Ultimately, ESG is shifting from reporting to accountability, and stakeholders want evidence of what organisations are doing, how they are doing it and what they have achieved between annual reports. That requires clear targets, credible data and transparent, year‑round communication that goes beyond broad sustainability claims.
It also requires businesses to start with the stakeholder rather than the report. Organisations need to understand what matters to their employees, customers, investors, suppliers and communities, whether that is jobs, skills, energy, privacy, ethical use of AI, cybersecurity or environmental sustainability. From there, they can then build communication and engagement around those priorities.
ESG must become a two‑way conversation in which businesses listen and respond to employees, customers, communities and investors, not simply broadcast information. Technology can help organisations scale those conversations across channels, including WhatsApp, email and other digital touchpoints, creating mechanisms for people to respond and for businesses to understand what more they can do.
An ESG report tells people what you’ve done; trust is built in the conversations you have in between. The shift from reporting to accountability is therefore not simply about communicating more often. It is about being transparent, providing evidence, listening to stakeholders and showing, throughout the year, how commitments are translating into action.
