Your ESG Rating Is Lying to You

Is ESG really about sustainability, or is it quietly becoming a hard economic filter for who gets to trade, raise capital, and survive?

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr Nisha Kohli, Founder and CEO of CorpStage, to unpack why ESG has shifted from glossy reporting to something far more consequential for supply chain resilience, risk, and competitiveness. Nisha has spent over two decades working across corporate governance, sustainability, and finance, and she’s seen first-hand where most organisations are still getting this badly wrong.

We talk about why ESG reporting remains broken for so many companies, and why ratings and rankings often mislead investors rather than inform them. You’ll hear how credible, auditable data is becoming a prerequisite for access to markets, tenders, and green finance, especially as tariffs, carbon taxes, and mechanisms like CBAM start reshaping global trade.

We also break down why ESG isn’t just a cost centre. Nisha shares real examples where relatively simple greening measures delivered 50–60% IRR with short payback periods, reduced operational risk, and opened doors to new markets. You might be surprised by how often the biggest barrier isn’t technology or regulation, but confusion, fragmented data, and treating ESG as a PDF rather than infrastructure.

We explore the growing role of data, AI, and system integration in making sustainability usable at scale, why carbon pricing is about to become a core input into supply chain decision-making, and the mindset shift leaders need to make as sustainability moves from “business as usual” to business critical.

🎙️ Listen now to hear how Dr Nisha Kohli and CorpStage are reframing ESG as a lever for resilient, competitive, and future-ready supply chains.

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Transcript

0:03

If they adopt greening measures, the greening measures can give them returns anywhere between 50% to 60% IRR. With some small simple measures, they can make these changes. And these IRR they can reap within the payback period of three to four years. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to episode 103 of the Resilient Supply Chain Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Sustainability has quietly moved from the footnotes to the balance sheet through tariffs, through carbon taxes, through supply chain costs that are suddenly very real, very measurable, and very hard to ignore. Today's conversation is about that shift, ESG, not as a report. Not as a compliance exercise, but as infrastructure, as data, and increasingly as a source of competitive advantage or competitive risk. Because when companies are forced to choose between tariffs on one side and carbon taxes on the other, sustainability stops being abstract it becomes operational. To unpack what that looks like in practice. I'm joined today by Dr. Nisha Kohli, founder and CEO of CorpStage. Nisha has spent more than two decades working across corporate governance, sustainability, and finance, helping companies turn ESG from a checkbox into something credible, auditable and usable. In this episode, we talk about why ESG reporting is still broken for most organisations, why ratings and rankings often mislead investors, how credible data can unlock cost savings and access to capital, and why carbon pricing is about to become a core input into supply chain decision making. And as always, if you want full access to the entire backlog of over 480 episodes, plus a direct line to me for feedback, ideas, and guest suggestions, you'll find the Resilient Supply Chain Plus subscribe link in the show notes. Now, Nisha, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself? Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm truly honoured. I am Nisha Kohli CEO, and founder of company called CorpStage, which is based out of Singapore. So pleasure to be here with you, Tom. Great, thanks Nisha. And tell me Nisha a little bit about CorpStage. What is CorpStage? You know, what does it do for whom? Okay, CorpStage, as the name suggests, it's a stage where corporates perform. It's a platform for companies to manage and report their ESG KPIs. Now who does it work for? I mean, it's for corporates, whether they are listed or non-listed. Or you can say small, medium size, or large companies which require to report for the stakeholders. Now, in those stakeholders could include your shareholders or your customer suppliers, but also the regulators. These days, you know where ESG reporting has become mandatory. So CorpStage platform is a multi reporting framework where it not only helps companies to report as per standards such as GRI, ISSB, or CSRD, but it also helps unlisted, non-listed companies such as even startups to manage and track the KPIs and sustainable measures. So it's an all inclusive platform where companies start with their basic profile creation, stakeholder mapping, materiality analysis, risk and opportunity assessment. And then finally, collecting data as per the standards. And artificial intelligence has been used to track carbon footprint as well as to create narrative based reporting on the platform itself. We also have project management module, which helps companies to track and monitor their KPIs as per their milestone basis. Okay, and you're based outta Singapore. Yeah. Are you addressing the Southeast Asian market, the European market, the Americas? All of the above? None of the above? Yeah, so the markets that we address primarily is APAC region which is Asia. Now if Asia, I would say even the GCC region is covered. And Australia as well, not New Zealand. If I say Asia Pacific, it doesn't cover New Zealand as of now, but we are focusing on Australia. We do have an entity in Austria, in Vienna. So we have plans to grow in European region. We have served a couple of clients earlier in the last two, three years, but the focus was primarily on Asia. But now we are, you know, planning to grow in the European region as well. And what's the kind of genesis of CorpStage? You're the founder as well as CEO. So what made you decide to set up the company? Yeah. So I'm a chartered accountant by profession. Like my initial first degree was chartered accountancy. And then I went and did CFA I'm an associate member of CFA. And then I'm also a PhD in corporate governance and social responsibility. So my career of overall, you can say 25 years, has been, in mix of corporates. I've worked in companies like Coca-Cola and Techno Metal, et cetera. But I've also worked as consultant for companies, which are like large energy companies or power companies, et cetera. And then I've worked as academic person as well. Like I've done research, I've published papers in this field and I've taught in universities across the world, such as American universities, if I can name them. Concordia Temple University in Australia, in Asia, in Singapore, yeah. So I've been an adjunct faculty member there. So overall, my career of 25 years has been mixed of all these. But I would say 16 years has been in social responsibility and governance consulting totally. And out of those 16, eight years, have been in core sustainability and ESG area where we actually consulted lots of companies, but also built this platform called CorpStage. So now to answer a question that why CorpStage is basically when I was working with companies for helping them to raise impact funds, I was integrating sustainability into their strategies and helping them to integrate as well as communicate those sustainable measures to the impact investors so that they can raise money. But then I realised that, it's very difficult for companies to do this. So they need somebody to help them out with this. And on the other hand, there's a whole world of, passive investors, I would say, out of the total investments that happen in the world today, 60% is, or maybe 70% is from passive investors. Those passive investors, they primarily focus on ratings and rankings. I mean, not now, but. Yes. Three, four years down the line before back they were focusing on rating and rankings. Now these rating and rankings we cannot trust are completely like, then I started interviewing these asset managers and I realised that. They were looking for a platform or a measure to actively, analyze the company for its ESG measures. They had their own models, et cetera. Then I thought. That, okay. These asset managers are using their own models to evaluate the company, but who's providing the data? So the company should be aware about ESG, should be doing corporate sustainability properly to provide right quality data to these investors. So there was a big, and even today we keep hearing, you know, I attended tons of conferences, and I heard from various stakeholders that there's a data challenge, so there's a huge data gap that exists even today, and which existed earlier. So my vision was to help companies bring primary organic information, which they create in their own entity, in their own company, directly to stakeholders. Of course, you know, thay would not be doing all the, work that they do to the stakeholders, but then whatever is relevant, I mean, which can be verified or traced back to the or its origin. So that was my vision and that's where we developed CorpStage. Very good. And ESG has obviously exploded in complexity. I mean, there's an alphabet soup there of letters. You reeled some of them off there as CSRD, ISSB, GRI, you name it. From your experience, what's the biggest pain point companies face when trying to get this right? When I started looking at the platform, I was confused at which framework to adopt. Then I started looking at different frameworks and I found that there are more than 20 frameworks, or maybe more, but we looked at primary 20 frameworks. So it was June of 2020, well the world was going through COVID situation. So I recruited nine to ten summer interns from US universities, and I gave them this task of mapping and aligning these ESG standards and frameworks. So we looked at 20 global frameworks. And then on the other hand, I mean there were three groups which I formed. One was primarily looking at SDGs and ESG KPIs and mapping SDGs like 17 have sustainable development goals with ESG KPIs. That time, that much of knowledge was not there in terms of published papers, et cetera. So I was, I, I asked the interns to do that. And then on the other hand, we, picked up 25 stock exchanges of the world to look at the corporate governance, social responsibility and, and ESG requirements overall. You know, what do they have? And on the third team was basically looking at these 16 global frameworks and looking at that, this particular code of standard matches with this one and SASB 77 industries, how do they relate to GRI and so on and so forth. To my surprise, you know, while I started this work in June, 2020, November, 2020, itself ISSB board was formed, with the objective of collaborating. I mean all the standards and frameworks, they collaborated and they said, okay, let's have one uniform framework for sustainability. And then we got the ISSB term came, I mean the board was formed initially, but it took them about six to seven months or maybe one year to appoint the board and to have the team in place. And they deliberated and they mapped and aligned. And finally in 2023, we got the ISSB standards. I was constantly following ISSB and making sure that CorpStage integrates everything, all the recommendations from ISSB, right from day one. And what do you think is the biggest pain point for companies though when trying to report these standards? Yeah, so the biggest pain point, of course, is the data challenge and understanding the particular standard requirements. So, currently for example, if a company situated in Asia or in Singapore they are required to do ISSB, but if they have operations in Europe as well, then they have to do CSRD. Now if they do not understand the standard as such, they, if they, if they do, then they would say, oh, these are same, you know, this focuses on double materiality. This also focuses on double materiality, and everything is same, but it's like the form for them matters more than the substance. So they get confused with these forms, the requirements. And then you know, the biggest pain point is that they have to understand the gaps of what they are doing with the standard. And then they because of the talent issues or because of the expertise in this area, then they look for consultants who can help them for each particular standard. That's where the cost for each company increases. And let's talk about ways outta that then. I mean, you've built CorpStage around the idea that ESG isn't just compliance, it's competitive advantage. What does that look like in practice? Yeah, so ESG in practice, I would say, if a company does adopt greening measures, it is able to achieve anywhere between, you know, initially we can say that 15 to 20% of the savings in terms of operational costs. So, and that is proven, you know, today itself I published an article on LinkedIn about the garment industry. Now lately under Trump's administration, the textile industry now is taxed heavily on the imports in US, which is like India. India, for example, is a biggest exporter, Vietnam also, they, they have been taxed heavily on textile and garment industry. Now, if, let's say companies feel that, okay, the there are tariffs, and they will have, let's say 10%, 20% revenue decline, because of these tariff or, let's say devaluation of currency and they are the lack of competitiveness or reduced competitiveness. So then in that case, they would lose the exports. What is the next measure? The other measure is to diversify the market. Now let's look at the biggest, another alternative biggest market is either EU or Australia for Asian market or Asian countries, right? So when we look at EU, EU has got CBAM currently, which is Carbon Border adjustment Mechanism where they charge carbon taxes, which is currently, you know, on an average 70 Euros per ton is charged on that. Now, if we look at that kind of cost, 70 euros per ton. Then these companies who cannot export to US because of tariffs, will diversify to Europe now, or Australia. Even Australia today in the news it was that they're also looking at implementing CBAM measures. So, if Europe has already done for six industries, they're looking at, you know, expanding it to other industries and already they have started factoring it for other industries as well. So if textile companies, they start exporting to EU, they'll be charged$50, $50 per ton or $70 per ton, you know, in within that range. So which one is better to go to US or keep continuing US and increase the cost? I mean, with the tariffs their revenues will be impacted, the cash flows will be impacted, or this one where they will be taxed on the CBAM. So if they adopt greening measures, the greening measures can give them returns anywhere between 50 to 60% IRR, you know, with some small simple measures, they can make these changes. And these IRR they can reap as within the payback period of three to four years. So they will benefit, out of this greening measures and export to Europe. So that, I mean, that is the research I did and I published an article on LinkedIn. Yeah. So this is, this is what it means. And we have practiced it for logistics industry, for shipping industry, for, yeah many other industries. You know, we, we were realistic, for example, so we have seen these kind of savings coming in. Okay. You must share that LinkedIn link with me and I'll put it in the show notes so everyone has access to it. You said some easy enough greening measures that companies could undertake. What kind of greening measures are you talking about? I would say there's a, there's a misconception. There's confusion that whenever we say greening measures, companies think, oh, there's investment involved. You know, so decarbonisation measures and go as investment, but then there are certain activities which they can adopt without investing heavily. So just to give an example, in an African company where we worked they were looking at decarbonizing their generators. Now in Africa, they, they cannot function without generators. So straight away not using generators and replacing them with some other measures would be very expensive investment for them. So what we suggested is that we suggested to use of scrubbers. I mean, that's where you could reduce your scope one. So it improves the efficiency of the generator. Those kind of measures. For example, in the logistics company in Singapore, we suggested that managing their fleet properly so that they can track the distance the time, the fuel consumed, et cetera, for the drivers. And then incentivise those drivers on the basis of that. So that would itself, give them some benefit. Then there are recycling circularity measures, which are basically generate, it's an opportunity. It's not just saving the cost, but it also giving revenue, you know, when they recycle certain materials, or they may come up with an alternative new vertical also. And I know you are working with AI, blockchain, even digital twins. Can you unpack how these tools actually make ESG reporting more transparent and not just more complicated? Yeah, so when I talk about AI, AI is basically used to automate things. As I said, that our platform is a multi framework reporting platform. Now, with that, companies have a problem. You know, earlier when when we mapped and aligned the frameworks, we thought we'll ask companies to fill in the data once, and then our system will put the data into different frameworks and give them automated reporting, but that kind of messaging did not work well for companies because of the regulation. So the, you know, after 2022, these regulations started coming and then companies said, oh, we want to do ISSB, we, we want to focus on CDP, we want to focus on CSRD, so they want the particular form to be provided and filled. So we went via that method as well, because our platform is very flexible that way. So we provided them different, different frameworks. But then now again, they've come back to that point that, oh, we don't want to fill up this manual information again and again for different standards. Even though we have crystallised and demystified all frameworks in a very simple language, everything. Then we came up with AI measures in late 2024. We started working on that. Now our platform actually automates that through AI. How it does, we can connect the ERP system of the company and then ERP, I mean there are certain modules of SAP, for example. You can connect to the system and then you can extract the data through API integration into CorpStage platform, which automatically fills in the data. Then the other way to do it is that you can simply upload your documents like Pastier document up annual report or ESG report, you can upload and say, Hey, this was the earlier that year's report. These are the initiatives of this year. What is my gap analysis? So it's like, you know, AI is integrated to automate lot of things for them. And then what we have done is through this upload of document and ERP connection, as I said, CorpStage is a 360 degree platform. It enables materiality analysis on the platform. It does surveys, stakeholder engagement on the platform. So all those reports are created on the platform. So everything is there here. You can easily select, okay, I want to write the stakeholder section of my report. Choose this document, choose this document. The list is available to you, and then automatically AI does the report creation for you. Normally, all other softwares they provide you the ESG KPIs, EHS or environmental KPIs or you know, those kind of things. And then companies download that data or they may have Power bi, et cetera to create those charts. And then they have to give it to another consultant to write a whole 200 page report for them, which is again, to be mapped and aligned with the reporting framework. So they don't know whether it'll be fully mapped with GRI or CSRD or not. Right? In our case, you know that you have chosen, okay, I want to create today's CSRD report. Here it is. And then whatever documents you have, just select all those and automatically AI will create a CSRD reported framework. Of course, it'll not be like 200% complete, but it'll give you a good I would say 70, 80 pages, you know, so that you can, work and enhance it, on top of that. And can you share a story, for example, for a customer where moving beyond box ticking compliance led to real business value, whether it's financial, reputational, or operational resilience? Yeah, I mean there are many such examples I can share that companies who have moved away from checkbox listing, actually they've proven to be leaders. So one such client was able to avail green finance. Actually, they came up with that motive in mind that, Hey, can you help us doing ESG? We are not even required to do ESG, but can you help us? And we want to avail green finance. So that was possible. And then the other one, as I mentioned, you know, our previous preliminary clients were focused on impact investments. So we were able to get them impact investments through integrating SDGs into this. And then lately we worked with, as I said, logistics client and they have started putting more focus on the tenders where ESG is required. So, I think day before yesterday I got an email, Hey, we want to go for LEED certification, you know, so that we can get those tenders done. It's really helpful beyond the checkbox approach. Great. And what about employees? Do you see ESG data making culture shifts, maybe helping with recruitment and retention, that kind of thing? Yes. I mean in in our practical examples there's still what we have seen there's a hesitation from employees because of change transformation, change management, which is required for integrating ESG, but as regards the attracting of new talent. Yes. The new generation employees, they're looking at sustainability for sure, and that's how they, get attracted to companies which are leaders in sustainability and ESG. Now, one reason for that is, of course, you know, this generation is much more advanced and they really care about the environment. But on the other hand, they're also looking at their future career that, if the company is not sustainable, then what would happen, you know, down the line and what will happen to their jobs, et cetera. So that's the, thing that we are seeing in the market. And when it comes to CorpStage attracting talent, yes, we, even though we are a small company we are able to, attract people who are willing to work for us and they really enjoy. Yeah. And looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest disruptor for sustainable supply chains? Is it like tariffs, carbon taxes, or maybe digital tools like ESG twins? Yeah. So I would say yes, definitely the carbon tax mechanism, which is now happening, as I said about Europe and in Australia as well. And even middle East is becoming very serious about it because they have through their decree law, you know, they have implemented carbon measurements, scope one and two for the companies, but they're also thinking of leaving these for the imports in the region. So if that happens, that will be a game changer. That will require a shift by companies to look at these things very seriously, even though they may not be mandated to report on certain frameworks, but just carbon foot printing and then making sure that their products are decarbonised will be essential, which will become very important. Now to enable that, the digital tools, such as at CorpStage, we provide the verification and validation of suppliers. So when I said that we have an active stakeholder engagement module, we have the supplier due diligence surveys and things like that. We use our three modules, Corporate Profile module, which enables suppliers to provide their basic information, just tax ID and, you know, incorporation id, et cetera. Then they have the listing of certifications, which is very important by companies such as garment manufacturers, or chemical companies. They require certain certifications from when they're buying products from suppliers. So we have that forms. And then the third one that we have is carbon footprint calculation. So by using these three or providing these three to our suppliers, to, to any supplier, we can verify and validate them that this, yes, they are legit and they are doing ESG. And then they can apply for tenders. So on our marketplace now, we are actually building that list of tenders and RFPs, which require sustainable products. So in the coming months, we, you will see an AI matched supplier and RFP platform by CorpStage. So that's in the work in progress by us. But yes, that, that's a digital tool that we are coming up with. Nice, nice. And obviously green finance, as you alluded to earlier, is another big lever. Do you see money finally flowing where the impact is, or are we still at kind of early lip service stage? I would agree to both that money is there, but also at lip service there's a lot of new products have to be developed. Of course, lot of things have been because when I see it from past four, five years and I'm constantly in this space, you know, sustainable finance as well as corporate sustainability space, I've seen a lot of developments have happened. And to mention about green finance nowadays, we also see sustainable trade finance, which is very good for trading and particularly, that supports the supply chain. Overall green finance when linked to KPIs actually help companies to reduce their cost of capital or the weighted average cost of capital by 10 to 20 basis points. So that's very beneficial for companies. And we have seen companies, not directly through us, but we have seen large companies, you know, taking a benefit of that. What we have helped is we have also worked in the field of green finance where the farmers community, et cetera, they, they are able to, get sustainable finance or green finance, which are linked to the impact that they create, such as water saving or, you know, using less fertiliser and things like that. So that has helped them to avail such facilities. And if you had a crystal ball, what do you think the supply chain of 2035 looks like? Okay, so sustainable supply chain. I would say companies will have to choose between tariffs and taxes. That's, that's fair. So supply chain should be flexible and scalable. If you want to make it cost less, then you have to just in time is the measure or produce locally and adopt things locally rather than going global. But that is the challenge, then I would say adopt greening measures, which will help you to get verified and validated and then trade globally. And if you were sitting across from a supply chain leader who's just starting on this journey, what's one mindset shift that they really need to make? The shift that they need to make that business as usual to be converted to sustainable business model. That's the shift mind shift that they need to make. And whenever they are doing the capital budgeting or say financial analysis for, you know, buying certain raw materials from one place or doing the entire analysis, basically, you know, for the supply chain. Then they should take into account the non-financial measures such as greening measures as well into that. And then looking at carbon tax or the carbon price as an active ingredient for those financial analysis. I think that would be a game changer because currently also only few companies are considering carbon as the pricing or carbon, you know, integrated in their analysis and everything. I, I think that is required in going forward, because today we are seeing the carbon price as 70 to 80, or maybe it'll touch a hundred. But going forward, let's say 2050, it is estimated that it'll go to 420 Euros or something. So if that is the case, I mean, 2050 is very far, but let's assume 2030, it'll cross over a hundred. It'll be a difficult situation for companies. Of course. Left field question for you, Anisha. If you could have any person or character, alive or dead, real or fictional as a champion for sustainable supply chains, who would it be and why? I would say it could be either Patagonia or Unilever's Paul Polman they have changed the game for the world. I mean, Unilever for the last 10 or more. They have been the leaders of this. They have done a lot of changes in their supply chain from where they were criticised about their products or the way the delta, I mean the small sachets to big products. And I mean, the living plan of 2030 that they adopted is a real, example for the world to follow. So Paul Polman had a different vision. He was not scared of not attending the quarterly meetings and then, he was the one who, who said, okay, I'm not attending quarterly meetings, but I'm focused on this 10 year plan. So he stuck to his plan and he changed the game. So that would be a role model for supply chain, I would say. Fantastic. Fantastic. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Nisha, is there any question that I didn't ask that you wish I did or any aspect of this we haven't covered that you think it's important for people to be aware of? Yeah, I think one area which I would like to, I mean, which I did not answer properly, or I would say should be give it focus, is the ESG audit readiness or the credibility of the data that people put it out there. So the information that is there in sustainability reports today, the PDF reports that we see are their, their information and they are disclosures for the stakeholders. But until, and unless those disclosures are credible or auditable, they have no meaning. So I would say it's very important for companies to keep a track to actually have traceability of the data from where the data is coming and how they're reporting it. So that would be very essential and I would like to stress that point for companies that they should follow, that Very good. Okay. Nisha, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them? I'm available on LinkedIn. They can reach out to me on LinkedIn and I can share my email address with you. They can even write to me in case they have any questions. Those are most prominent channels that we have. Perfect. Okay, Nisha, thanks a million for coming on the podcast today. Thank you so much, Tom, for having me. Thanks a lot. Okay. Thanks everyone for listening to this episode of the Resilient Supply Chain Podcast with me, Tom Raftery. Every week, thousands of senior supply chain and sustainability leaders tune in to learn what's next in resilience, innovation, and transformation. If your organisation wants to reach this influential global audience, the people shaping the future of supply chains, consider partnering with the show. Sponsorship isn't just brand visibility, it's thought leadership, credibility, and direct engagement with the decision makers driving change. To explore how we can spotlight your story or your solutions, connect with me on LinkedIn or drop me an email at Tom at tom Raftery dot com. Let's collaborate to build smarter, more resilient, more sustainable supply chains together. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll catch you all in the next episode.