ESG reporting for Kenyan SMEs: where to start
The first ESG question most Kenyan SMEs face arrives as a surprise: a questionnaire from a multinational customer, a tender requirement, a lender's checklist. The instinct is to buy a certificate or hire a consultant to 'make us compliant'. Both instincts waste money.
Start with the baseline — an honest inventory of what you already do and record. Most SMEs discover they already practise much of what ESG asks about: employment records, waste arrangements, safety practices. What is missing is usually documentation, not behaviour.
Second, answer the actual question. A client's questionnaire has specific asks; respond to those with evidence, not a generic policy downloaded from the internet. A two-page document that accurately describes your real practice beats a forty-page aspirational one.
Third, build the collection routines. Energy bills filed monthly, waste recorded per collection, staff policies reviewed annually — small routines that mean next year's questions answer themselves.
What can wait: certification, carbon accounting and full sustainability reports. Those matter when your stakeholders require them — and by then, your baseline will make them far cheaper to produce.