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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.

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Greendex 2014: Increased Fears About Environment Not Reflected in Consumer Behavior

National Geographic’s 2014 Greendex, released today by the National Geographic Society and GlobeScan, finds that concern about environmental problems has increased in most countries surveyed, and that more people expect that global warming will negatively affect them during their lifetime than in 2012. Despite this, the survey — a comprehensive measure of consumer behavior in 65 areas related to housing, transportation, food and consumer goods — shows that corresponding consciousness in consumer behavior has only grown slowly.

#NewMetrics '14 Panel Dives Into #SocialFootprint Approach for Ensuring Product Sustainability

Thursday, the second afternoon at Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics ’14 conference, featured a follow-up deep dive session into the topic of one of the morning’s well-received plenary presentations — how to quantify a product’s “social footprint” as a next step in assessing sustainability.While the sustainability field has developed many ways to assess products’ environmental footprints, until now few tools have helped accurately measure the social impacts that products have on workers, local communities, suppliers, consumers and more throughout their life cycle.

Plenaries Unveil Next-Gen Goal-Setting Frameworks, Groundbreaking Product Assessments on #NewMetrics '14 Day 2

It is no secret that markets are starting to demand a more complete picture of businesses' interactions with environmental and social realities of the world — a new, expanded set of success factors and risks to inform key stakeholders — or simply #NewMetrics. How New Metrics are conceived, brought to life, communicated effectively, and perfected over time, are the key questions metrics experts in the Sustainable Brands community are tackling this week at New Metrics '14, taking place in Cambridge, MA, in partnership with the Sustainability Initiative at the MIT Sloan School of Business.

#NewMetrics ’14: Catching Up with SASB

The third morning workshop on Wednesday, day one of New Metrics ’14, at MIT Sloan School of Business, gave us a closer look at the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), its process and its progress to date since its founding in 2012.

#NewMetrics ’14 Workshop Reveals Secrets to Effective Employee Engagement

There is a disconnect between what we are doing for the environment and how we are treating our people, and four thought leaders in integrating the two gathered Wednesday at New Metrics ‘14 to share solutions on solving that gap.Key Thought: Engagement Delivers Value

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#NewMetrics '14: LCA — Not Just for Carbon Footprinting Anymore

At a conference on New Metrics, it seems fitting to begin with a discussion of the current state of life cycle analysis (LCA), one of the earliest quantitative tools that practitioners had for measuring impact. Initially applied to a narrow set of functions such as carbon footprinting, today’s LCA has evolved to incorporate expanded dimensions, issues and scale, as we learned in this half-day workshop on the morning of day one.

#NewMetrics '14 Workshop Explores Next-Generation, Web-Based Sustainability Tools

In the world of CSR, tools enable practitioners to extend capabilities; when we think differently, we can do differently. In the new and ever evolving world of sustainability, understanding how we can use tools to do better at answering the questions of the field will enable progress. Leaders in this burgeoning area gathered Wednesday morning at MIT Sloan, day one of the New Metrics ’14 conference, for a workshop to discuss new, easy-to-use tools aimed at supporting and enhancing the work of sustainability practitioners in every field, and the impacts of access to new, accurate and verifiable data.

Global Shift to Mass Transit Can Save $100 Trillion by 2050

More than $100 trillion in cumulative public and private spending, and 1,700 megatons of annual carbon dioxide (CO2) — a 40 percent reduction of urban passenger transport emissions — could be eliminated by 2050 if the world expands public transportation, walking and cycling in cities, according to a new report released by the University of California, Davis, and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP).In addition, an estimated 1.4 million early deaths could be avoided annually by 2050 if governments began requiring the strongest vehicle pollution controls and ultralow-sulfur fuels, according to a related analysis of these urban vehicle activity pathways by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) included in the report.

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.”

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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.

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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.

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