Business Talk – Standard Bank’s Joel Buatre on why ESG adoption is lagging behind in South Africa

Joel Buatre is the Digital Portfolio Lead for Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) at Standard Bank Group.

Buatre leads CIB Digital’s thinking when it comes to the innovation and development of sustainability and ESG-related products.

As part of his mandate, he leads the development of a framework which is used to evaluate the potential sustainability and ESG benefits of all products and solutions offered through Standard Bank’s OneHub solution.

Buatre has a BCom in Economics and Financial Management from the University of Pretoria and a Post Graduate Diploma in Innovation and Design Thinking from Emeritus.

In this Business Talk interview, Buatre talks about how South Africa is lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to the adoption of ESG principles.

He discusses why it is important that local businesses take ESG strategy seriously, and unpacks the challenges that are currently holding organisations back from doing so.

Buatre then talks about how Standard Bank is trying to help businesses handle these challenges through tools like PowerPulse and WyzeTalk.

The full interview with Joel Buatre can be viewed below.