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.
Oxfam: Big 10 Food Brands Must Walk Their Talk to Truly Boost Social Sustainability
2 years ago - Nine of the “Big 10” global food and beverage companies - Associated British Foods (ABF), Coca-Cola, Danone, General Mills, Kellogg, Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever - have improved their ratings by at least 10 percent in three years since Oxfam began keeping score through its Behind the Brands scorecard.
How to Take the Pain Out of CSR Reporting
2 years ago - Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and other forms of sustainability reporting can be a painful process. Whether you’re a one-person sustainability, health and safety manager or your company has staff around the world who share reporting responsibilities, it can be challenging to effectively collect, assess, and communicate your company’s sustainability metrics.
G-Star, Ted Baker Lead Fashion Sustainability Disclosure with MADE-BY’s Revamped Scorecards
2 years ago - Fashion brands’ sustainability performance has lacked independent verification and true transparency. European non-profit MADE-BY is hoping their ‘ground-breaking’ new tool, called MODE Tracker, will change that.
Chris Hale: The Future of Impact Investing is About Measuring Impact
2 years ago - That investing to make a positive impact as well as a dime has evolved considerably over the past few years has turned on its head a long-standing worldview that the sole purpose of business and investing is to make money, while solving social and environmental challenges is the domain of government and charity. While some may remain skeptical that for-profit investment can be both a morally legitimate and economically effective way to address social and environmental problems, impact investing is moving swiftly from concept to convention.
True Materiality and Integral Thinking: Editor's Postlude
2 years ago - It has been my pleasure to edit this tour-de-force 6-part series — now an e-book — by my colleague, Ralph Thurm, in which he lays out his vision for how integral thinking and true materiality can catalyze a regenerative and inclusive economy, leveraging the work of the ThriveAbility Foundation, the Reporting 3.0 Platform, and the Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings (GISR).
New Evidence Bolsters Claims of Connectivity Between CSR and Market Caps
2 years ago - Last August, I published an article here in which I described what, to me, is the most compelling business case for corporate sustainability or CSR extant: the fact that it literally drives the market values of publicly traded firms up or down in measurable ways. To be clear, I believe there are two fundamental business cases for CSR: an intrinsic one and an extrinsic one. The intrinsic one involves the pursuit of sustainability for its own sake; the extrinsic one involves the pursuit of sustainability for financial gain – a means to an end.
How Do We Assess Impact (and Why Should We)?
2 years ago - I recently attended the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) 2nd Inclusive Business Forum for Asia in the Philippines, where I sat in on an engaging discussion on assessing the merits of impact investments.
Integral Thinking and True Materiality Define Trust, Innovation, Resilience (Part 6)
2 years ago - This is the final part of a 6-part series about integral thinking and true materiality. It proposes a new impetus to develop reporting that is able to serve the idea of a green & inclusive economy.
How to Make a Material Impact on Your Company's Sustainability
2 years ago - Sustainability Rising It will come as no surprise to this community that sustainability has moved well beyond social and environmental responsibility circles to become a C-suite priority. The numbers give voice to the trend:
Integral Thinking & True Materiality, Part 5: Scalability Opportunities Define the Size of Impact
2 years ago - This is part 5 of a 6-part series about integral thinking and true materiality. It proposes a new impetus to develop reporting that is able to serve the idea of a green & inclusive economy. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
Q&A: How the YK Center Is Pushing Forward the ‘New Economy’
2 years ago - That the future of profit is purpose is the modus operandi of the YK Center, a self-proclaimed “for-benefit organization” striving to push the needle on a more sustainable economy.
Integral Thinking, Part 4: Defining Success Leads to True Value Creation
2 years ago - This is part 4 of a 6-part series about integral thinking and true materiality. It proposes a new impetus to develop reporting that is able to serve the idea of a green & inclusive economy. Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
What If 'Opposites' Aren't Really Opposite?: Part 19
2 years ago - In 18 earlier parts of this series, Claire Sommer, Jill Lipoti and I developed 37 pitfalls in the sustainable business metrics field, based on the experiences of many mostly non-business fields (Find them here.).
Integral Thinking and True Materiality, Part 3: Purpose Definition Defines Connectedness
2 years ago - This is Part 3 of a 6-part series about integral thinking and true materiality. It proposes a new impetus to develop reporting that is able to serve the idea of a green & inclusive economy. Read Part 1 and Part 2.
Sustainability Mythbusters: Products With 'Zero Emissions'
2 years ago - It's easy to use 'common sense' and make assumptions in sustainability, but does that get you the results you want? As a science-based method, LCA is an excellent tool to bust the myths that surround sustainability. In this series, we look at some common sustainability ideas to see if they are myth or truth. In today’s episode: the drive towards zero emissions.
Researchers from ASU, Yale, NOAA Develop Equation for Calculating Value of Natural Capital
2 years ago - Many businesses have come to better understand the critical importance of nature as an input, but the question still remains as to how its value compares to other assets — not as lumber or drinking water or a fancy dinner, but as standing forests, healthy aquifers or living organisms.
The Need for Integral Thinking and True Materiality
2 years ago - This is part 2 of a 6-part series about integral thinking and true materiality. It proposes a new impetus to develop reporting that is able to serve the idea of a green & inclusive economy. Part 1 can be found here.Those of us who have been working in the areas of corporate sustainability and integrated reporting struggle to reconcile the gap between our aspirations for a world we envision, and the current world that falls short of sustainability and integration. More precisely, some of the following aspects have also led to the raison d’être of the three initiatives that I presented in Part 1. Here are the most important ones:
'Integral Thinking and True Materiality': An Introduction
2 years ago - If 2015 was the year that inspired new hope in sustainability with the publication of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the success of COP21, 2016 is the year the rubber needs to hit the road when it comes to implementation and impact. So rather than add to the end-of-year 10-best-of-this-and-that listing stampede, instead I’ve created a 6-piece series summarizing essential learnings from 2015 to focus priorities and actions for 2016.*Reflecting on 2015, my own work focused on front-end developments needed in three interlinked areas:
It's All Relative: The Fatal Flaw in Corporate Sustainability Ratings
2 years ago - Corporate sustainability ratings are of growing interest to business leaders, investors, and the general public. The annual releases of popular ratings such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World Index now attract widespread coverage. A key driver of this interest is the belief that these ratings schemes allow us to distinguish sustainable corporations from those that are not.
How the Insurance Industry Can Help Save Humanity
2 years ago - The industrial economy is geared towards maximization of wealth. This target has led towards substantial, even amazing, economic growth during the last two centuries. Yet, at the same time this growth has introduced new risks and has caused severe threats and actual damages to the environment and to the social framework.Some risks are environmental: Global climate change; loss of diversity that decreases resilience; damage to delicate food chains; and land, air and water pollution. Others are societal, such as employment security, growing inequality in income and wealth, pressures related to rapid urbanization, and demographic changes that threaten retirement system.