Culture is the body of shared assumptions, attitudes, ethical norms, values and daily habits that shapes how personnel behave, and it mirrors the organisation's real attitude to ESG. The vision, mission and strategy that top management sets should sit squarely with ESG; being committed to ESG values attracts recruits, and ESG itself puts weight on sound people practices such as promoting diversity and inclusion, equity and fairness, health, well-being, safety, security and a feeling of belonging, and positive ESG behaviour can be recognised in pay and appraisal. The organisation judges where it stands on the four stages of ESG maturity and moves upward: the first stage reacts to external demands and reporting, satisfied with the minimum at least cost, with policy aimed at avoiding penalties or winning licences and contracts, third-party checks avoided unless required, lip service inside and out and ESG seen as a cost, with greenwashing a temptation; the second goes through the motions, reporting and complying mechanically with box-ticking that is often unfocused, over-engineered and costly, deciding by committee to spread responsibility, managing mainly reputational risk and missing the bigger picture, with weak and inconsistent measures; the third sees the competitive worth of ESG as a win for investors, shareholders, members, customers and value-minded staff, reports beyond the minimum to sell the brand and may use independent conformity assessment, but remains exposed to changes in conditions, objectives, interests or leadership and to fashion; and the fourth is committed from within, with community and environmental outcomes at the heart of its objectives, vision and values, sound governance and a pro-ESG culture embedded, principles taking it beyond any external demand, outcomes measured openly, fairly and in balance, leadership shown and learning shared with the wider community, and sustainable, resilient, accountable results with a continuing cycle of capability-building and improvement.
The graph holds this control, the 0 it maps to, and the evidence behind each claim, over MCP and REST.