ESG Strategy Consultancy: What It Is, When You Need One, and How to Choose

An ESG strategy is the set of decisions a company makes about which sustainability issues it will act on, what it will commit to, and how it will get there. A sustainability report describes the results afterwards. Companies often start with the report because someone asked for one, then discover they have nothing to report against: no targets, no owners, no plan. That is the moment an ESG strategy consultancy earns its fee. This page explains what the work is, when it is worth doing, and how to choose a consultant in Greece or elsewhere in Europe.

Enable Good is a sustainability and impact advisory based in Athens. We build ESG and sustainability strategies for companies in Greece and across Europe, and we prepare the reports that follow them. If you already know you need a strategy, book a free 20-minute call. If you want to understand the work first, keep reading.

Strategy versus reporting: the difference that matters

Reporting is backward-looking and descriptive: here is our energy use, our emissions, our safety record, our training hours. Strategy is forward-looking and selective: of everything we could work on, these are the three or four issues that matter most for our business and our stakeholders, here is what we will achieve on each, and here is who is responsible. A company can report without a strategy, and many do. The report is then a list of numbers with no direction, and readers notice. The longer explanation is in Sustainability strategy vs sustainability reporting.

What an ESG strategy consultancy actually delivers

1. A materiality assessment. A structured way of deciding which environmental, social and governance topics are material for the company: which ones affect its value, and which ones it affects. This is the foundation; everything else follows from it.
2. A baseline. Where the company stands today on each material topic, with real data. You cannot set a target for a number you have never measured.
3. Targets and commitments. Specific, dated, and proportionate to the company. A ten-person firm does not need a net-zero roadmap to 2050; it needs three commitments it can keep and show.
4. An action plan with owners. Who does what, by when, with what budget. A strategy without names attached is a wish list.
5. Governance. How progress is reviewed, how often, and by whom at management level.
6. A reporting path. The strategy decides what the company will disclose and under which framework, so that next year's report writes itself from the plan.

When a company needs an ESG strategy

• A large customer, bank or investor has asked not just for data but for targets, policies or a plan.
• The company is about to produce its first sustainability report and has nothing to report against.
• Management has made public sustainability statements that are not backed by anything measurable.
• The company is entering a market, a tender or a supply chain where sustainability is scored.
• Sustainability work is happening in pockets, driven by individuals, with no shared direction or budget.
• The company wants a good EcoVadis or similar rating, and the policies and actions the rating rewards do not yet exist.

If none of these apply, a company may not need a strategy consultant yet. A first report, or a well-answered customer questionnaire, may be the better use of the money.

How the work runs

1. A first call to understand the business, who is asking for what, and what has already been done.
2. Materiality: interviews and data review to identify the topics that matter, then a short list agreed with management.
3. Baseline: collecting the current figures for each material topic and finding the gaps.
4. Strategy workshop: targets, commitments and priorities set with the people who will own them.
5. The written strategy and action plan, with a governance rhythm and a reporting path.
6. Optional follow-through: quarterly reviews, or preparing the first report against the plan.

For an SME or mid-market company a strategy engagement usually runs two to three months. The work is mostly conversations and data, not documents. The document at the end should be short enough that management actually reads it.

How to choose an ESG strategy consultancy

1. Ask what a strategy looks like when they are done. If the answer is a long slide deck, ask who is going to use it and how.
2. Ask how they run materiality. A real answer names methods and stakeholders. A vague answer means a template.
3. Ask whether they can also prepare the report. A consultant who does both will build a strategy that is actually reportable.
4. Ask who does the work. Strategy is senior work; it should be done by someone who has done it before, not supervised from a distance.
5. Ask for a fixed scope and price. Strategy engagements drift when nobody has defined the end.
6. Ask what happens in year two. The right consultant leaves the company able to run the plan without them.

Working with Enable Good

Enable Good is a boutique advisory in Athens founded by Elpida Vasileiadis, a sustainability and impact strategist who has designed sustainability strategies and impact measurement frameworks for leading corporations and major nonprofit organisations. We build ESG and sustainability strategies for companies in Greece and across Europe and carry them through to the sustainability report, the SROI or impact report, or the EcoVadis submission that follows. Every engagement has a fixed scope, a senior person doing the work, and a plan the company can run on its own afterwards.

The free ESG Readiness Check is a quick way to see where the gaps are before deciding whether you need strategy help, reporting help, or neither. Or book a free 20-minute call and we will tell you plainly.