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.
Why We Need to Build Context Into Sustainability Surveys
Surveys of corporate executives consistently find that sustainability is now viewed as a core business issue. Recently, McKinsey released the results of another such survey that opened: “Company leaders are rallying behind sustainability, and executives overall believe the issue is increasingly important to their companies’ strategy.” Other surveys, such as those regularly undertaken by GlobeScan and SustainAbility, consistently offer broadly similar conclusions.
Four 'Forces for Good' We Can Leverage to Inform Human Capital Value
"Too much of what led up to the crisis in the old bubble days — the conspicuous consumption, the latter-day Gatsbyism — was fueled by a need to fill a huge emotional and psychological void left by the absence of meaningful work. When people cease to find meaning in work, when work is boring, alienating, and dehumanizing, the only option becomes the urge to consume — to buy happiness off the shelf, a phenomenon we now know cannot suffice in the long term.”
Ben & Jerry's Pilots the MultiCapital Scorecard™ Method
Way back in 2000 when Ben & Jerry’s (B&J) was acquired by Unilever, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield had the presence of mind to require that the acquisition agreement itself include language that would ensure the preservation and growth of the company’s sustainability and social mission programs. To that end, the acquisition agreement also included language that required the development of a set of supporting metrics. After many years of experimenting with alternative approaches, Rob Michalak, Global Director of Social Mission at B&J, believes they may have finally found what they’re looking for: the MultiCapital Scorecard™ (MCS).
The 'Human Dimension' – L'Oréal's Charles Duclaux on Measuring the Social Impacts of Products
PRé Sustainability has gathered industry leaders from L’Oréal, Marks & Spencer, Steelcase, BASF, BMW Group, DSM, Goodyear, Philips, AkzoNobel, Corbion, Ahold and Reckitt Benckiser for the Roundtable for Social Metrics, which has developed pioneering principles and metrics for social impact assessment. We spoke to Charles Duclaux, Head of Corporate Responsibility Reporting and Environmental Innovation at L'Oréal, about the Roundtable's new Handbook and L'Oréal's sustainability efforts at large.What can you tell us about L’Oréal’s sustainability strategy?
How Understanding Your Products' Social Footprints Helps Create Business Value
Recent significant advances in both sustainability assessment and societal awareness have resulted in businesses placing growing importance on full product value chain transparency. This relates to the need to investigate social impacts throughout products’ values chains and make them visible. Understanding and addressing social impacts has become an increasingly important value driver for frontrunner companies in the sustainability arena.
BASF Evaluating Entire Product Portfolio for Sustainability
In order to better help its customers align environmental and societal considerations with business success, BASF has developed a new process for steering its portfolio based on sustainability criteria. Launched today, the Sustainable Solution Steering method is used to systematically review and evaluate the sustainability aspects of the approximately 50,000 relevant product applications in the company’s portfolio, which represent sales of €56 billion. The benefit: This externally validated process makes it possible to measure the products’ contribution to sustainability within their various markets and industries and to increase this contribution through targeted steps.
Report: Carbon Credits Bring $664 a Ton of Additional Benefits to Local Communities
Offsetting one ton of carbon dioxide brings an additional $664 in benefits to the communities where carbon reduction projects are based, according to new research by Imperial College London and the International Carbon Reduction and Offsetting Alliance (ICROA).Unlocking The Hidden Value of Carbon Offsetting shows how purchasing carbon credits creates economic development opportunities, aids environmental conservation, and helps improve people’s lives by delivering household savings, health benefits and improving water resources, among other social benefits.
New Rating Helps Apartment Buildings Save Water & Energy
WegoWise, a building intelligence provider, has launched a new rating for apartment building energy efficiency performance.WegoScore is a simple numerical assessment that provides a clear snapshot of a building’s utility usage, enabling property owners to prioritize retrofits, better manage their portfolios and communicate building efficiency to tenants. The rating condenses numerous complex measurements of building performance into one number. It is a tool for the real estate industry to communicate efficiency efforts among owners, managers and occupants. It also can highlight superior asset management practices to the financial markets.
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This is the fourth and final installment of a series covering crucial sustainability reporting issues on materiality, sustainability context, comparability and stakeholder inclusiveness.
Unlocking the Potential of Social Capital Value
I’ve always been fascinated with social behavior. Why do people react differently when confronted with a certain situation, a new idea, or information that challenges existing beliefs? Why are some resistant to change, while others are inspired by future possibility? And why do some people just not care about tomorrow because they are focused on what needs to get done today? With all this difference between us, how do we come together and collectively act to solve the world’s biggest problems while still living a happy, fulfilling life?
How Itaú Asset Management Is Driving Integration of ESG Criteria into Fundamental Equity Valuation
Is the investor community of the world’s most advanced economies informed, engaged and excited enough to make significant progress on building sustainable investment portfolios? How likely is that and how could it be done?The answers remain largely unclear, if not leaning more toward a “no” than anything else. At the same time, some forward-looking leaders in financial services are taking specific practical steps in their pursuit of tangible solutions that could be implemented immediately. Consider the case of Itaú Asset Management[i] (IAM).
12 Industry Leaders Unveil Methodology for Assessing Social Impacts of Products
A group of companies united in the Roundtable for Product Social Metrics today announces the publication of the Handbook for Product Social Impact Assessment, a practical tool for assessing a product’s social impacts throughout its life cycle. The handbook is the result of a unique collaborative effort of a group of market leaders across a variety of industries.
7 Reasons Companies Need Natural Asset Portfolios
Why, after over a decade of progress, are customers, shareholders and employees still skeptical about corporate sustainability programs? Here are seven reasons why brands need to begin building natural asset portfolios in order to change this:#1 Everyone already knows about your corporate footprint
Comparability of Sustainability Information — Slaughtered on the Altar of Materiality?
This is the third in a four-part series by Ralph Thurm and Nick De Ruiter examining Sustainability Context.
Global Shipping CO2 Emissions Dropping Each Year, 8% Between 2012 and 2013
Average carbon-dioxide emissions for a majority of global ocean container transports have declined year on year, and by nearly 8 percent between 2012 and 2013, according to a new report by BSR.The BSR Clean Cargo Working Group’s 2014 Global Maritime Trade Lane Emissions Factors report provides data from more than 2,900 ships, representing around 85 percent of global ocean container capacity, and is designed to help global ocean transport providers and their shipping customers to measure, evaluate, and report on environmental performance data.
Linking Carbon-Reduction Targets to Economic Value Added: Making Sense of Science
Towards ‘climate-stabilizing’ corporate carbon-reduction targetsAlthough setting corporate carbon-reduction targets is nowadays commonplace, many targets are grounded in ‘guestimates’ of what seems reasonably achievable or at least looks reasonable for external purposes and are often short-term in nature. Some mask an actual increase of absolute emissions as a result of growth and/or are set as intensity targets linked to sales, revenue, production or number of employees, but bearing no direct linkage to the actual reductions that would be required according to scientific bodies such as the IPCC.
Can There Be Meaningful Integrated Reporting? (Part 2 of 2)
In part one, Mark McElroy examined three types of integrated report structures, as identified by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), along with their limitations. Here, he explores a new methodology that puts stakeholder primacy front and center in integrated reporting.Shareholder Primacy
Can There Be Meaningful Integrated Reporting? (Part 1 of 2)
Last year, prior to the release of the IIRC’s Integrated Reporting (<IR>) framework, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) published an interesting report on integrated reporting trends between 2010 and 2012. Over 750 self-declared integrated reports were studied.One of the key research questions in GRI’s analysis involved the structure of the reports examined and whether or not they could be broadly categorized by type. This would have obvious implications in terms of how the authors of integrated reports interpret the concept of integration itself, while also revealing the approaches they took to measure, analyze and report performance.
UPS Increases Deliveries, Still Meets Carbon-Intensity Reduction Goal Three Years Early
UPS has met its 2016 goal of reducing its air and ground fleet's carbon intensity by 10 percent three years early, and has set a new goal to achieve a 20 percent reduction in carbon intensity from transportation by 2020, according to the company’s new sustainability report.The report outlines the company's "Committed to More" approach to sustainability, highlighting the company's greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals as well as the measurable impact from its humanitarian initiatives.UPS recently pioneered its new Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 guidelines, becoming one of the first companies in the United States to report in accordance at the "Comprehensive" level.
The Mindset Gap in Addressing Sustainability Context
This is the third in a four-part series by Ralph Thurm and Nick De Ruiter examining Sustainability Context.
