The new and evolving metrics that are helping expand the way businesses create, quantify, manage and report their impacts – and the value they deliver
Last week at Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics ’18 conference in Philadelphia, PA, over 300 delegates from brands, NGOs, strategists and practitioners across sectors gathered to share their latest tools and findings regarding measuring the risks and impacts of previously unmeasured forms of value, the newest credible tools and solutions for assessing the ROI of Sustainable Business. Read More...
Last week at Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics ’18 conference in Philadelphia, PA, over 300 delegates from brands, NGOs, strategists and practitioners across sectors gathered to share the newest credible tools and solutions for assessing the ROI of Sustainable Business. Read More...
This week at Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics ’18 conference in Philadelphia, PA, over 300 delegates from brands, NGOs, strategists and practitioners across sectors gathered to share their latest tools and findings regarding measuring the risks and impacts of previously unmeasured forms of value, the newest credible tools and solutions for assessing the ROI of Sustainable Business. Read More...
Novo Nordisk is the first global company to have completed a Future-Fit self-assessment and to have the results independently assured. In advance of Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics ’18 event next week in Philadelphia, I sat down with Cora Olsen, Global Lead on Integrated Reporting at Novo Nordisk, to discuss what the company learned from this process. Read More...
Oceans cover more than 70 percent of our planet’s surface and are home to 80 percent of life on earth. Fish, which provide 20 percent of daily protein intake to about 3.1 billion people, is among the most widely traded food commodities — at a value of US$145 billion annually. Read More...
The Natural Capital Finance Alliance (NCFA), together with the Natural Capital Coalition and VBDO, has launched a groundbreaking guide to help financial institutions understand and assess their reliance on natural capital — i.e. the clean air, oceans, ecosystems and minerals that most of our goods and services depend on. Read More...
In formulating strategy, shaping communications and improving their impact in the world, companies, and their sustainability teams, must answer two big questions: "What is important to our business?” and "What is important to our stakeholders?” (Sometimes as a proxy for the larger question: “What is important to the world?") Read More...
At its core, the #NewMetrics series of events has always been about quantifying previously ignored risks, costs and revenue potential associated with sustainability impacts. Over the years, we have explored important new metrics related to the whole range of vital capitals — natural, human, social, relationship, intellectual and financial — with the same end goal of helping businesses understand the full picture of their presence in the world, so they can then improve it in informed, holistic ways. Read More...
Companies representing roughly one-eighth of total global market capitalization are now using climate science to define their future direction. Nearly three years on from the Paris Agreement and with time running out before greenhouse gas emissions must peak, 2018 has seen an unprecedented rise in the number of companies committing to reduce their emissions in line with the levels required to prevent dangerous global warming. Read More...
What we at Sustainable Brands call “New Metrics” allow businesses to quantify previously ignored risks, costs and revenue potential associated with sustainability impacts. Smart executives use #NewMetrics to understand the full picture of their companies’ interactions with the rest of the world, improve stakeholder relationships, and steer innovation toward the products and services of the future. The field has evolved steadily and produced many significant milestones over the past decade. Below are three big trends businesses need to be on top of if they want to gain early-mover advantages and maximize the respective upside that awaits. Read More...
From remote sensors to digital field mapping, information technology (IT) is rapidly becoming a part of day-to-day farm management. When a state-of-the-art cotton picker, for example, records crop yield and moisture every few seconds, along with the GPS coordinates of the machine, that data can be analyzed against water and fertilizer applications — or other farm practices — to determine optimal growing conditions. Technology also can enable reporting up and down the agricultural value chain of all farm practices and conservation metrics associated with a particular field. Read More...
Scotland remains one of the world’s leading nations on circular economy thinking — this year Glasgow will host the Circular Economy Hotspot, an international event and trade mission that will showcase the country’s progressive approach to materials and resource use. Read More...
To keep the global temperature increase to well below 2⁰C and meet the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement, everyone must take bold action to reduce their share of emissions as soon as possible. Companies are responsible for the majority of global emissions and therefore play an integral role in meeting these goals. Read More...
With 3.8 billion years of R&D behind Earth’s systems and creatures, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what we can learn and how we can apply those lessons to our companies, products and processes. Read More...
More and more clothing brands are taking it upon themselves to dive deeper into the impacts of their garments, increasing transparency around and improving their materials, processes and operations as a whole. Read More...
The private sector has been mobilizing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. But corporations are also in constant pursuit of returning shareholder value, and as such, need to look for ways that SDG-aligned strategies can give a true measure of shareholder value. Read More...
“Organizations rely on a diverse set of ‘capitals’ to function effectively,” says Emma Ringström, Sustainability Manager, Pulp and Performance Chemicals at AkzoNobel. By measuring these, she says, “We can find ways to make the most impactful improvements and ultimately increase business value.” Read More...
This month, Pure Strategies celebrates 20 years of providing sustainability consulting to companies such as Stonyfield Farms, Ben & Jerry’s, Seventh Generation and Walmart. Its team has been helping to build leading strategies, improve products and packaging, and shift supply chains toward better environmental and social performance for well over 100 organizations over their years of work. Read More...
A multi-industry initiative has introduced new protocols and tools for the responsible sourcing of tin, tungsten, tantalum, gold, and cobalt, as well as social, environmental and governance impacts of the extraction and processing of raw materials in international supply chains. Read More...
Measuring Fashion: Insights from the Environmental Impact of the Global Footwear Industries Study considers the industries’ value chains across seven stages — from fiber production and material extraction to end-of-life. Read More...