The new and evolving metrics that are helping expand the way businesses create, quantify, manage and report their impacts – and the value they deliver
Without a uniform, universally accepted and publicly available measurement methodology, companies large and small wanting to eradicate the pay gap are often left wondering where to start. Read More...
We've come a long way since the first New Metrics conference seven years ago. Read More...
At the closing of the New Metrics '17 conference in Philadelphia last month, attendees were asked: “What ‘New Metric’ will you go back and implement in 2017/2018?” The overriding response tabulated in real time and displayed on the big screen in a word cloud (above) was “context based,” meaning Context-Based Sustainability (CBS) and its corresponding context-based metrics. Read More...
The new wave of conscious consumption, driven largely by millennials and Gen Z, is pushing companies to innovate around social causes. Read More...
Live Well San Diego: A visionary partnership to define and measure 10 quality-of-life metrics By Anna Shugoll Read More...
While measurement, disclosure and other forms of engagement were the dominant themes yesterday, day two of New Metrics ’17 saw brands, NGOs and solution providers digging deeper to reveal practical applications and concrete findings from where the rubber meets the road in the world of sustainability metrics. The design and implementation of a Sustainable Product Optimization Tool By Anna Shugoll Read More...
As Sustainable Brands' New Metrics '17 conference kicked off in Philadelphia on Monday, speakers from SASB, CSRLab, WRI, the World Happiness Summit and more presented a range of topics revolving around a few common themes: Correctly measuring what matters, disclosing material data and knowing your audience when you do. From disclosure to performance: Building a virtuous loop By Jessica Bast Read More...
Corresponding with the kick off of the 23rd UN Climate Change Conference (COP23), CDP has released a new report finding that over 100 of the world’s state and regional governments are taking action to address climate change, particularly in the short-term. Read More...
We need to make better decisions to avoid the potentially severe consequences for businesses operating in a deteriorated environment. The social and environmental megatrends will, over time, act as a drag on prosperity as the costs of basic inputs such as water, energy and land escalate in response to scarcity. Read More...
September marked the fifth anniversary of a public comment that I and 65 other members of the Sustainability Context Group submitted to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in the run-up to G4. Read More...
Our corporate partners were increasingly being asked to contextualize their sustainability goals and performance. They wanted to understand what tools were available and how to approach the issue of context. The Embedding Project’s Road to Context guide was written to help support this process. Read More...
Sustainability requires contextualization within thresholds. That’s what sustainability is all about. Allen White, co-founder, Global Reporting Initiative The part can never be well unless the whole is well. Plato, Charmides, 380 BCE Read More...
The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) and the Cool Farm Alliance (CFA) — a nonprofit industry platform and creator of the Cool Farm Tool sustainable agriculture calculator — have signed a memorandum of understanding to improve alignment and reporting of farm-level metrics data. Through the partnership, TSC aims to make the process of reporting on farm-level metrics easier for farmers and food manufacturers. Read More...
One of the hallmarks of context-based sustainability (CBS) as an approach to performance accounting in business is that it features the use of organization- or company-specific metrics. Indeed, a basic tenet of CBS is that no two organizations are exactly alike and it makes sense, therefore, for them to use different metrics to assess their performance, all in accordance with their own materiality determinations. Read More...
Part Ten in a 10-Part Series by Reporting 3.0. See previous parts below. “If you don't know where you're going, you might not get there,” U.S. baseball icon (and meister of understated irony) Yogi Berra famously stated. This quip accurately describes CSR / ESG incrementalism, which heads in a direction without a clear destination. By contrast, context-based multicapitalism (as advocated by Reporting 3.0) provides not only a clear destination, but also a timeline for tracking the rate of progress needed – across multiple, interrelated dimensions. Read More...
As more businesses make moves to align their operations and strategies with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the need for a common framework for reporting on the impacts and contributions of companies to the SDGs becomes more apparent. Read More...
A new sense of readiness and willingness from companies is transforming how businesses approach responsible growth. Corporate sustainability is no longer viewed as a trend, but as a necessity. That’s why leading companies across the U.S. and the globe are recognizing that capturing value requires improving energy management, engaging suppliers and driving innovation. One of the most effective ways to do this is by setting targets that are in line with what climate science says in necessary to keep warming below 2 degrees, known as “science-based targets.” Read More...
Part Nine in a 10-Part Series by Reporting 3.0. See previous parts below. Read More...
Part Eight in a 10-Part Series by Reporting 3.0. See previous parts below. Read More...
Massachusetts-based Fourstar Connections, founded in 1986 as a cable assembly shop, has evolved into a comprehensive solution provider with an extensive portfolio of services and solutions to tackle a wide range of manufacturing needs. It also differentiates itself with a focus on sustainability — as a value creator and risk mitigator for the company, as well as for its publicly traded customers. We caught up with Fourstar’s owner and president, Phillip Holman, to learn more about the company’s commitment to sustainability, and why he thinks it’s time for CPAs to lean into discussions and strategy-setting around the issue. Read More...