Sustainability doesn’t mean sacrificing profits or putting success on the backburner. Instead, it has become a crucial element in any organisation’s success strategy. An organisation that doesn’t factor in sustainability risks being less successful in a number of measures, including profitability, impact, growth, and employee retention. Organisations that work toward building the necessary systems and processes for actions, assessment, measuring and reporting not just on behaviours, but also impact, will be best placed for success and growth.
Context
Those involved in the non-profit as well as social impact space have considered sustainability at the core of what they do, but these considerations are becoming increasingly important for all organisations as nations sign up to a greater number of global goals. As an example, COP 26 sees sustainable finance as a deliverable that will make all other goals possible. What this means is that all financial decisions will have to take climate change into account. This has major implications for any organisation accessing funding with requirements for adequate sustainability strategies, as well as sufficient mechanisms in place to assess and report on impact. If they don’t, the risk factor associated with them increases. Environmental impact isn’t the only one that will have to be considered, other commitments will take into account other sustainable goals too. There is also more of a move toward sustainable organisations and responsible leadership, as consumers and employees make more conscientious decisions in who they purchase from and support, or work for, with public bodies being held to account too.
Start with strategy and goals
SDGs and other related goals are very closely aligned, and is usually the starting point for most organisations. Main ESG KPIs focus on:
- Labor Practices and Decent Work indicators
- Human Rights indicators
- Society indicators
- Product responsibility indicators
The challenge for most organisations
A major challenge for most organisations is that they have no idea where to start. There are numerous frameworks that can be used to measure and report, there is no single standard, and each framework has different indicators. Just 10 of the main frameworks have around 735 KPIs as well as different indicators within categories (environmental, social and governance), appearing at different frequencies. Report and ratings methodology, scope and coverage, vary greatly and can often be an obstacle to organisations developing sustainability strategies, and implementing plans for measuring activity and impact.
We understand that all organisations have the mammoth undertaking of making sense of the mushrooming number of global standards, goals and targets, as well as the implications these have for them, and even more of a challenge is building in mechanisms for assessing, reporting and measuring impact. Despite often being engaged in activity which could be leveraged in ESG and other SDG reporting, there are limitations in being able to access appropriate training, policies, resources, and expertise to set up the systems required to integrate assessments and reporting into normal day-to-day operations in a way that is affordable, manageable and maintainable.
How we help
Our mission is to support organisations to develop strategies that are actionable and sustainability practices that are accessible, achievable and maintainable. We take you through a process of ascertaining what the key indicators are for your goals, and determine relevant activities, systems and processes for hitting your sustainability targets. We also assist with implementation plans. This includes support for integration of systems in a way that is manageable internally, and can be maintained for ongoing implementation, reporting and measurement of activity and impact.
What do we do
- De-mystify Sustainability, ESGs, SDGs, Impact Assessment, Measurement, Verification & Reporting through organisational reviews of SDG alignment and impact goals and priorities, alongside staff training tailored to your context
- Align your strategy, goals and activities with a sustainability plan and indicators that are most relevant for your organisation
- Review your resources and develop the best mechanisms to integrate relevant policies, actions, assessments, and reports into your operations in a way that is most attainable
- Reviews and assessments of stakeholders in the activity chain- suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, service providers and more to determine sustainability of stakeholders directly and indirectly connected to the organisation for broader scope reporting and reviews
- Support with policies, systems and implementation plans for actionable activity and milestone assessments and reporting on impact
We have the expertise and a number of policies, templates, reports, resources and processes that help our clients with:
- annual impact reports that documents activity and impact
- formal community service policies and strategies
- open-book management process that allows greater transparency with financial/operational data
- enhancing professional development policies to integrate sustainability
- social, environmental and governance metrics to employee reviews
- worker satisfaction/engagement initiatives and outcomes
- assessing sustainable practice of and giving preference to local suppliers and socially responsible suppliers
- benchmarking energy, water, and waste, and assessing energy management for saving and renewables
- designing ESG assessment program for significant suppliers
- And many more.
- Impact verification strategies and systems to measure, manage and report on impact, with customised impact reports for your organisation