A life form that breathes oxygen and a life form that evolved in an ammonia atmosphere shared no biological commonality. Their sensory organs, methods of communication, and the physical conditions of their existence were all different. Yet in the film ‘Project Hail Mary,’ the two beings — Ryland Grace (played by Ryan Gosling, hereinafter Grace) and Rocky — cooperated. They shared a single commonality: the fact that their respective home stars were on the verge of extinction from the same threat.
[Scene 1 from the film ‘Project Hail Mary’ © Sony Pictures]
‘Project Hail Mary’ is based on the 2021 novel of the same name by American author Andy Weir. When humanity faces extinction due to the microbe ‘Astrophage,’ which consumes solar energy, science teacher Grace is dispatched on a mission to save humankind. Waking up alone light-years away in space, he encounters the alien being Rocky, and the two communicate through the medium of mathematics and frequency.
This film contains questions too precious to be consumed merely as a sci-fi blockbuster. Is cooperation possible even when the conditions of existence differ? And that question points precisely to the point at which international ESG governance is currently stuck.
A Reality Different from the Film
In the film, Grace and Rocky could not communicate at first. There was no common language between a being that speaks through sound waves and one that speaks through light. The two invented their communication system from scratch, using mathematics and frequency as intermediaries. There was one premise that made that cooperation possible: the shared crisis that if the stars died, both would perish. Real-world ESG governance satisfies only half of that premise. Developed and developing countries recognize the shared threat of the climate crisis, but for 30 years they have been unable to narrow their differences over ‘who should reduce first and by how much.’ While IPCC reports urge immediate action, the nations gathered at the negotiating table first pull out safety nets for protecting their own industries. When Europe introduced the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), developing countries pushed back, calling it ‘climate colonialism.’ In effect, the crisis was shared, but no common language was created to solve it together.
[Scene 2 from the film ‘Project Hail Mary’ © Sony Pictures]
A Half-Baked Common Language Amid Countless Standards
When the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) issued the IFRS S1 and S2 standards in 2023, many welcomed it, saying “at last a common language for global ESG disclosure has emerged.” But adoption was left to each country, and the mandatory application timeline, disclosure scope, and third-party verification requirements all varied. The European Union (EU) began phased mandatory disclosure from 2024 through the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had its climate disclosure rules suspended by litigation after introduction. The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) released a biodiversity disclosure framework, but corporate adoption rates remain at an early stage. It is not that standards are lacking; it is that there are too many, and no one is reconciling how they differ from one another.
The absence of a common language manifests identically at the corporate level. Korean export companies are experiencing ESG fatigue as they face different disclosure standards from each client. For the ISSB framework to function, regulatory authorities and companies in each country must submit comparable data, but if standards exist without data, the common language exists only in the dictionary. The solution is not unification into a single standard but the establishment of ‘interoperability.’ The ISSB is already working with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to reduce duplicative disclosures. The direction is right; the problem is speed.
A Climate Crisis That Does Not Wait
In the film, Grace was on a deadline. He had to find a solution before the Astrophage consumed all the sun’s energy. There was no leisure to deliberate over cooperation, so cooperation was not optional.
Climate science sends the same warning. The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report specifies that mitigation actions by 2030 will significantly determine climate risks in 2100. This means there is not much time to sort out the fragmentation of ESG governance. Now, with regulations in each country, global supply chains, and the ESG demands of capital markets all changing rapidly at the same time, what Korean companies need is a strategy not for ‘which standard to follow’ but for ‘how to flexibly connect between the standards.’ The fact that beings who share a crisis reached out their hands is sometimes, in itself, a sufficient beginning.
by Editor L