Community Updates

Sustainable Brands Releases White Paper on Redefining and Measuring New Forms of Business Value

SAN FRANCISCO– Sustainable Brands® recently released a white paper framing the forthcoming opportunities in the field of emerging sustainability metrics called Redefining Value: The New Metrics of Sustainable Business. The 28-page report introduces the rationale behind the need for metrics that better reflect new forms of business impact and value for the 21st century. It brings together a series of exclusive conversations on the topic that began in 2011 with the Sustainable Brands community held both online at www.SustainableBrands.com as well as via a focused annual conference on the topic hosted at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Published 11 years ago | About a 3 minute read

SAN FRANCISCO– Sustainable Brands® recently released a white paper framing the forthcoming opportunities in the field of emerging sustainability metrics called Redefining Value: The New Metrics of Sustainable Business. The 28-page report introduces the rationale behind the need for metrics that better reflect new forms of business impact and value for the 21st century. It brings together a series of exclusive conversations on the topic that began in 2011 with the Sustainable Brands community held both online at www.SustainableBrands.com as well as via a focused annual conference on the topic hosted at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Thought leaders from business, non-profits and academia have convened during the past several years to realize and understand the rapidly evolving progress toward developing and implementing new sustainable business metrics on a global scale. This paper reports on drivers behind the emergence of new mental models and provides examples of companies seeking to understand and measure new values and previously unmeasured costs such as the true of ecosystem services, and the value of investing in positive social impact and human capital. Cases referenced include thought leadership from Hewlett Packard on measuring impact and transparency in the supply chain, quantifying the value of human capital from Interface, the establishment of new supply chain scorecards from Procter & Gamble, evaluating net positive impact from Becker Underwood, Jones Lang LaSalle on enabling CFOs to see sustainability as central to core strategy, and incentivizing employee engagement from SAP, among others.

“As the adage goes, what gets measured, gets managed,” states KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz, founder of Sustainable Brands. “One of the challenges we face in shifting our economy toward a flourishing future is that current business metrics leave out as much as 80% of the assessed source of brand value today, as well as a significant percent of the ‘true cost’ of doing business associated with our use of eco-ecosystems services which, up until recently, have not been considered. Our goal in hosting the ‘New Metrics’ dialogue is to explore these new forms of yet intangible costs and forms of value creation, and put forward some of the most progressive work being done to capture and manage these critical business variables.”

The paper points out that an increasing percentage of professionals are accepting the premise that widening our view of meaningful business metrics can increase corporate profitability as well as fuel innovation and competitive advantage. It details several categories of new metrics being explored by business, non-profits and academia, and continues by suggesting a five-point screen for assessing whether one or more of these new metrics might be helpful to your business.

The white paper is complimentary and can be downloaded in its entirety from the Sustainable Brands website. The conversation continues at the upcoming New Metrics of Sustainable Business conference which takes place on September 24-25 at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Visit the event website to learn more.

About Sustainable Brands

Sustainable Brands® is the premier global community of brand innovators who are shaping the future of commerce worldwide. Since 2006, our mission has been to inspire, engage and equip today’s business and brand leaders to prosper for the near and long term by leading the way to a better future. Digitally published news articles and issues-focused conversation topics, internationally known conferences and regional events, a robust e-learning library and peer-to-peer membership groups all facilitate community learning and engagement throughout the year. Sustainable Brands is hosted by Sustainable Brands Worldwide, a division of Sustainable Life Media headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

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