New Metrics

The new and evolving metrics that are helping expand the way businesses create, quantify, manage and report their impacts – and the value they deliver

First-of-Their-Kind Metrics Guide Supply Chain Transition to Safer Chemistry

Replacing hazardous chemicals with safer alternatives across supply chains is one of sustainable business’s biggest challenges. The Safer Chemistry Impact Fund reveals an actionable roadmap to address toxic chemical pollution across consumer product sectors.

GSK, Kering Among Companies Setting Bar for Nature Strategies

Business for Nature’s ‘It’s Now for Nature’ campaign highlights the strategies of five companies leading the charge and invites others to start their journey to developing and publishing their own biodiversity policies.

The Only Value Sustainability Can’t Possibly Have

Cross-Posted from Surfacing Submerged Value. Right now, far too much of the business world is giving sustainability a value of zero, when nothing could be farther from the truth.

Early Adopters Share Insights from Piloting Science-Based Targets for Nature

Pilot companies say the newfound understanding of their impacts and dependencies on nature is helping change mindsets internally regarding the urgency of meaningful action.

Nature Positive Initiative Aims to Promote Alignment, Integrity in Race to Save Global Biodiversity

The NPI will clarify and standardize the term ‘nature positive;’ and drive synergies across the many actors supporting and implementing changes towards the goal of halting and reversing nature loss by 2030.

Introducing Resilience Science: A Visionary Shift for Corporate Strategy and Reporting

Climate resilience is the ‘resilience of a company’s strategy and business model to climate-related changes, developments and uncertainties.’ This language is worth reflecting on, as it brings the concept of resilience science into mainstream business thinking.

We Need to Choose Better Intensity Metrics; Here's How

The availability and measurability of data is critical in determining the right metric. Quantifying ‘social good,’ for example, is nebulous; if the metrics we select give us no ability to measurably improve them, then our work is for naught.

At Long Last, There’s a Metric for Quantifying the Monetary Value of Sustainability Investments

Astanor Ventures’ Impact Multiple on Investment methodology translates the expected and realized benefits of invested-in products or services into monetary terms — helping investors make more informed, strategic decisions.

The Materiality Matrix Is Like Grandma’s Ham

The key lesson is to question older practices to ensure they remain fit-for-purpose. After all, practices can morph over time to the point they become ends in themselves — so ubiquitous that no one questions them.

COP15: ‘Environmental DNA’ Technology Enables World-First Nature Performance-Monitoring Service

NatureMetrics says new platform represents breakthrough in understanding and managing our impact on nature — providing simple, standardized metrics to track and report on site-based nature impacts.

New Metrics, New Narrative, New Models Reflect New Approaches to Ensuring Targeted Impacts

One of many recurring themes at SB’22 San Diego was the need for a new lexicon and new metrics for the regeneration movement, which more accurately reflect the level of work and transformation needed to not only avert climate collapse but to enable a flourishing future for all.

UN Releases Manual for Companies to Conduct Authentic, Context-Based Sustainability Assessments

The Sustainable Development Performance Indicators help close the ‘Sustainability Context Gap’ — in which less than 1% of sustainability reports produced from 2000-2013 measured corporate performance in the context of ecological sustainability thresholds.

Empty Words: US' 47 Largest Carbon-Emitters Fail to Incentivize CEO Pay Based on Climate Performance

A new report analyzes the executive compensation packages of 47 of the US’s most carbon-emitting companies. Where climate-related compensation ties were claimed, most were negligible, non-quantitative and lacked specific, climate-related pay incentives.

Quantifying the Benefits of Women’s Empowerment: The Missing Metric for Game-Changing Climate Action

The W+ Standard is the first globally recognized framework that measures and monetizes women’s empowerment. Empower Co. is engaging with companies keen to cement their women’s-empowerment programs with robust data — and shift the mindset around climate action from mitigation to net positivity.

Seventh Generation Launches Comprehensive Framework for Calculating Corporate Climate Impacts

“We seek to push the practice of corporate environmental reporting dramatically forward and advance a far more complete vision of authentic climate leadership free of finger-pointing. We consider this report a summons to arms and a call to action both swift and sweeping.” — Chief Impact Officer Ashley Orgain

Team of Scientists Unveil Space-Tech Platform That Tracks Carbon in Every Tree

CTREES’ global dataset provides a nearly real-time picture of the carbon implications of forest conservation and restoration at the local, national and global level — ensuring results from efforts to reach global climate targets can be accurately reported.

Study Finds Social Cost of Carbon More Than Triple the Current Federal Estimate

A multi-year study of the social cost of carbon, a critical input for climate policy analysis, finds that every additional ton of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere costs society $185 — far higher than the current federal estimate of $51 per ton.

Measuring What Matters: PMI’s New Sustainability Index

As we continue to transform and discover better ways to develop impactful solutions, we hope our transparency and ambitious targets will spark dialogue with those who can help accelerate the pace of change — to question, challenge and engage with us as we work on making PMI better.

Sustainability Metrics 3.0: Measuring ROI of Regenerative Approaches, Social Impacts, Brand Trust

At SB’21 San Diego, veterans from sales, marketing, certification, design, finance, agriculture and more agreed: While there’s no checklist for regeneration, a focus on interconnectivity, holistic approaches and actionable goals will lead to measurable ripple effects.

SBTi Launches World-First Net-Zero Corporate Standard

The Standard clarifies that rapid action to halve emissions before 2030 and long-term deep emissions cuts of 90-95% before 2050 are crucial for net-zero targets to align with science.