This exclusive interview with Yuko Nakahata was conducted by Tabish Ali of the Motivational Speakers Agency.

An ESG report records performance and commitments. The next decisions concern action: which sustainability solutions to adopt, how they support corporate strategy and where operations can become more efficient.

Yuko Nakahata is a Japan-based ESG expert, founder and CEO of SustainaSeed, and an independent board director at NAC Co. and Tameny. She founded SustainaSeed in 2021 and is developing VerityBase, a database that helps businesses explore and compare sustainable solutions.

In this exclusive interview with the Sustainability Speakers Agency, Yuko explains why companies struggle after publishing ESG reports, how sustainability can strengthen long-term corporate value and where organisations should begin when assessing their environmental impact.

Question 1: What gap in the sustainability market led you to create Sustainaseed?

Yuko Nakahata: “I’m a serial entrepreneur, and also I’m a board director at the listed companies. So I was thinking, what is the next? For my next, I really wanted to do something social good.

“During the time, I’m seeing the startups about sustainability-related solutions. They really struggled. At the same time, I see the listed companies saying they don’t know what to do about ESG activities.

“They are issuing that report, but after the report, they really struggle to find exactly the right strategy, what to do. So I thought, here is a huge gap between the solution vendors and the solution seekers.

“That’s why we started this, making a database of sustainability solutions. We want to support how to take action.”

Question 2: How can ESG investment strengthen long-term corporate value?

Yuko Nakahata: “People are thinking ESG is just costly, but I usually say it’s not.

“If you implement sustainability to the corporate strategy, it could be mid and long-term corporate value up.

“Your investor, client, your stakeholders and recently the young generations, even the employee, they are looking at what the company is doing.”

Question 3: Why do some leaders continue to view ESG compliance negatively?

Yuko Nakahata: “People are thinking this is because of the mandatory and need to fit on the regulation. It is 20% more costly. Some people, not everybody, are taking it like a negative way.

“Better to change the viewing point. This can be something positive: how you use this as a strategy.”

Question 4: How should large organisations identify opportunities to improve environmental efficiency?

Yuko Nakahata: “If they talk about environment part, ESG, they related with another things also. At the first, I recommend to review what is the company’s situation. They need to understand what is ESG.

“For example, large organisations have many units. Reviewing one by one, it’s taking time, but there is some of the cases for sure they’re related with the environment.

“If you could notice how to make some part efficient, it’s already related with some of the environmental efficiency. I recommend start from checking what it is and review all of your unit.”

Question 5: What should happen after an organisation publishes its sustainability report?

Yuko Nakahata: “For the organisations, I would say sustainability is not about the reporting; it is action. I strongly support what to do.

“After issuing the report, I really want the people think to move: what is the action, what is the next?”