1. © InvestAssure 2015 paul.wenman@investassure.net
SMART Management and Assurance of ESG Risks
Managing ESG risks across networks can be complex and costly. Whether you are
concerned with supply chains, investment portfolios or customer bases, there is a need
to: 1. Communicate; 2. Assess Compliance; 3. Improve Performance; and 4. Deliver
Assurance.
Each of these steps presents huge challenges for corporate managers. InvestAssure’s
SMART provides an online platform for cost-effectively easing the process, enabling
flows of information between managers at corporate and asset levels who need to
drive, implement and be assured of compliance and risk management.
Simple, Logical, Intuitive
SMART has been developed with these three criteria as drivers. We have seen from
decades of business consulting and assurance that simple tools are most rapidly
adopted and flexible to future change. The workflow fits logically with the typical risk
management and assurance process. The user interface builds upon the natural
intuition to read, understand, test and plan. Instead of relying on separate PDFs,
databases and spreadsheets, SMART users can use a single platform to plug into a
shared process for management and assurance of risks.

2. © InvestAssure 2015 paul.wenman@investassure.net
Modular Structure to Reflect Management and Assurance Framework
SMART is structured to reflect the many ways in which organisations address business
risk management and assurance. At its heart, lies the concept of ‘reference modules’,
the framework which most organisations use as a reference point for setting
performance expectations, monitoring compliance and assessing overall progress.
These may be corporate or industry codes of practice, international standards, etc.
Reference modules provide a common point of access to SMART for all users, whether
for operational support, assurance or strategic analyses and decision making. They can
be populated with customised guidance and self-assessment questionnaires, allowing
the user to set out compliance and improvement programmes. More generic topic or
risk modules can provide support for operational performance improvements.
Web Platform with Customised Sharing and Security Options
SMART is web based, avoiding the need for application downloads and allowing all
content to be centrally maintained for instant user access. It also enables sharing of
data within user-defined SMART share groups, up-to-date access to guidance, e-learning
links and benchmarking. Users can opt for offline data storage to respond to corporate
security concerns. Data-sync options respond to any problems with remote internet
access.

3. © InvestAssure 2015 paul.wenman@investassure.net
1. Communicate and Inform
Each registered user is given online access to the organisation’s SMART space, which
can include its policies, codes, operational requirements and support tools. SMART
presents a hierarchical series of modules and sub-modules to reflect a set of principles,
or a risk register, expectations, requirements, etc. These are accessed via expandable
menus.
Every screen on SMART has a Help link to show associated explanatory notes and
operational guidance from any source - corporate libraries, the web, regulators,
independent experts. SMART can be fully customised with text, graphics and audio-
visual content.
Central management of shared information on the SMART platform allows updates to
be made instantly available to all participating assets and business partners. These may
be explanatory notes, supporting guidelines, operational standards, regulatory
requirements, new web resource links and so on, in text or multi-media formats.

4. © InvestAssure 2015 paul.wenman@investassure.net
2. Assess Compliance
SMART makes it easy for businesses to self-assess against the corporate requirements,
using a flexible, powerful, multiple-choice questionnaire tool. This provides a quick
snapshot of overall and detailed compliance across the various expectations of the
corporate code. This function of SMART can be used at two general levels.
 A ‘lite’ version, for a self-assurance process, allows the user to simply rate
their compliance with specific clauses of a corporate code.
 To support a more thorough improvement and assurance process, a series
of auditor style questions can be developed for each clause of a code,
probing the governance, management system and past performance record.
The assessment system allows questions to be customised individually in terms of
weighting and scoring. This enables considerable flexibility in the phrasing of questions
to be used. Clarification of questions and guidance on how to answer can be made
available both via individual help sheets and information ‘hover boxes’.

5. © InvestAssure 2015 paul.wenman@investassure.net
3. Improve Performance
SMART can be used to support performance improvement against a set of corporate
expectations. The SMART self-assessment tool allows the user the option of documenting
current state of compliance and improvement actions in relation to each corporate
expectation or assessment question.
These improvement actions can be prioritised and expanded with responsibilities and
timescales, to create comprehensive improvement management plans.
Self-assessment/audit scores can optionally be rolled up across each module or sub-module
for benchmarking against others in a SMART share group. This can be useful for individual
facilities and also for corporate managers, analysts and audit managers looking to compare
suppliers, analyse portfolio risks or prioritise audit programmes, etc.

6. © InvestAssure 2015 paul.wenman@investassure.net
4. Deliver Assurance
SMART supports assurance through stages 1-3, simply by helping assets and business
partners to understand and self-assess against expectations and by providing access to
guidance on how to comply and improve performance. However, SMART goes one step
further by providing mechanisms for directly supporting corporate assurance.
 Self-assessments and improvement plans can be shared with corporate
managers, auditors and others to demonstrate transparency and enabling
corporate monitoring.
 Corporate managers can analyse asset portfolios to assess levels of
compliance and determine priorities for audits and targeted on-site training.
Auditors can use self-assessments and improvement plans as the basis of site visits, to
verify compliance ratings and to work with assets and business partners on agreed
improvement plans.
Corporate control panels can be tailored to meet specific requirements of managers, for
example in procurement, fund management, customer account management or
corporate compliance.