Challenge Engagement
Once a company has identified its risks and opportunities and implemented its first substantive efforts at integrating sustainability, the need to deepen companywide buy-in and recommit to the process becomes apparent. This typically occurs because the most visible “low-hanging fruit” of the sustainability process have been harvested—for example, low-cost, high-yield programs to reduce waste—and making further progress requires a new level of analysis, cross-functional collaboration, leadership commitment, and up-front investment. Among the activities that can help maintain momentum at this stage are:
- Structural realignments that provide greater authority or support for sustainability managers
- Off-site strategy exercises that ask leadership to envision the company 20 years in the future
- Internal communications campaigns that relate the value of and vision for sustainability within the company to long-term stability and growth
- Setting new mid- to long-term goals and communicating them publicly
Sample Services
Sustainability Reporting
For sustainability reporting, preparation is as important as execution, and preparation begins with a comprehensive reporting strategy that sets a vision for how this tool can provide maximum value to your organization over the short-, mid-, and long-term. Our proven process—developed along with more than 40 sustainability and 35 annual financial reports over the past 13 years—will ensure that your reporting:
- Is carefully managed and leverages appropriate data-collection and review tools to ensure its time- and cost-effectiveness
- Is strategically relevant, stakeholder-responsive, fact-based, and assurable
- Meets your chosen reporting standard, most often those of the Global Reporting Initiative and/or the U.N. Global Compact
- Can effectively be scaled in future years to meet goals such as increasing disclosure or frequency of updates
- Is designed to engage and inform readers across a broad range of needs and perspectives through multiple channels
Impact Metrics
Understanding and communicating the potential financial and reputational impacts of a particular course of action (or lack thereof) is increasingly important in making the business case for implementing sustainability strategies. Ultimately, decisions should produce a measurable benefit in order to support the business and create momentum for future commitments. Framework can work with you to:
- Identify the appropriate metrics to apply to a given initiative or strategy
- Locate and manage specialist partners of yours or ours to build reliable data models
- Set appropriate goals and track progress towards these
Program Branding
Branding a sustainability program is a valuable tool for a company that wishes to differentiate and communicate its sustainability vision to internal and external stakeholders. At their most effective, these programs rally internal commitment and become valuable extensions of companies’ primary brands in ways that can enhance product recognition and value among customers, as in the case of Hilton’s LightStay or Starbuck’s Shared Planet. Framework can assist in this process through:
- Research on industry programs and attitudes of internal and external stakeholders
- Tools and exercises based on practices among branding agencies
- Design services and roll-out communications planning
