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Basic Sustainability Assessment Tool
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This tool enables an organization to assess
its progress toward
causing no harm to
people and the environment, as well as its
positive impacts on
people and the environment.
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Intended Users
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This is a comprehensive, generic tool. It can be used by any-size
organization, in any sector, in any country.
It may be especially helpful for
small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and large organizations with
minimal / no sustainability staff.
Note:
The "Advanced Sustainability Assessment Tool" is an optional
assessment tool for large,
multi-location, multi-national
corporations with sustainability professionals on staff. A comparison of the
two tools is available at this
link:
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Comparison of Basic vs
Advanced Sustainability Assessment Tools
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Balanced and Comprehensive Assessment
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The assessment uses two types of
questions:
1) Management questions
These
questions assess an organization's approach to, and progress on, reducing /
eliminating its
harmful
impacts on the environment, its employees, and
society.
2) Progress
Enabler questions
These questions assess the
organization's own positive impacts, how it is helping / amplifying
others’ positive impacts, and
how it is helping others cause less harm. Although there are prompts
for about 50 Progress Enablers
throughout the tool, only a few will apply to any specific
organization.
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Meaning of % Progress
Scores
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"Progress Enabler" percentages are bonus
percentages, so some scores may be greater than 100%.
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<100%: How far the organization is on its journey toward not causing any harm on that
issue.
* 100%: The organization is not causing any
harm / breaking even
on that issue.
* >100%: The organization
is being restorative / regenerative, directly or indirectly, on that issue.
Compare with scores in previous reporting
periods to track organization progress.
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Accommodates Multiple Frameworks
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This tool expresses an
organization's sustainability performance in three ways:
1. As scores on progress toward
science-based goals for 18 core sustainability /
ESG issues
that arise at the
organization's impact points, as shown in the figure below.
ESG (environmental, social
and governance) is used as a shorthand synonym for sustainability.
2. As scores on contributions
to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
ESG scores are used as
proxies for scores on their aligned, primary SDGs, as shown in the
figure. .
3. As scores on impacts on the
3 non-financial capitals (natural, human, and social).
ESG scores are used as
proxies for scores on their non-financial capitals, as shown in the figure.
Organizations can express their
sustainability scores in whichever framework's terminology (ESG, SDG
or non-financial capitals) is most
appropriate for their purposes.
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The core issues
are common to popular sustainability frameworks. More background on the
identification
and comparison of
sustainability frameworks is available in these resources:
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Comparison of Sustainability
Frameworks
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Sustainability Frameworks
deck in the Master Slide Decks
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Source of the questions
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The questions in this
tool are based on questions used in B Lab’s SDG Action
Manager and in the
Future-Fit Foundation’s
science-based Future-Fit Business Benchmark. They are both free, comprehensive
sustainability assessment tools,
and uniquely include questions about an organization's positive impacts.
The 36 Management and Progress
Enabler questions in this tool are primarily based on key questions in
those two assessment tools.
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SDG Action Manager
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Future-Fit Business Benchmark
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Why Do an Assessment?
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The results of the assessment can
be used to serve the information needs of diverse stakeholders, such
as:
• Disclosing sustainability performance to customers / buyers who use
sustainable procurement to
obtain the best value for
money, while purchasing the most sustainable goods and services from
the most sustainable suppliers.
• Answering inquiries from investors about the organization's social and environmental direct and
indirect impacts, to help
them assess the organization's attractiveness as a low-risk, impact
investment.
• Reassuring banks
/ lenders that the organization is mitigating
material environmental and social risks
and has earned a preferred
rate for low-risk borrowers.
• Applying for funding from foundations that support organizations which contribute to societal
wellbeing.
• Answering surveys from raters and rankers that benchmark
organizations' sustainability.
• Supporting board inclusion of sustainability considerations in its governance
/ duty of care mandates.
• Reporting sustainability performance to other stakeholders, including employees.
• Integrating sustainability / ESG
performance into internal management information systems and strategic
plans,
to ensure the organization
obtains full eco-efficiency and reputational value from its sustainability
efforts.
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Table of Contents /
Pages
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• Introduction
• Organization Profile
1 Governance worksheet
7 Environmental worksheets: Energy,
Water, Procurement, GHGs, Non-GHGs, Waste, Encroachment
5 Employee worksheets: Wages, Health, Terms, Concerns,
Discrimination
5 Society worksheets: Community Impacts, Taxes, Ethics, Lobbying,
Investments
• ESG Scores: Summary of assessed scores on the above 18 ESG issues
• SDG Scores: ESG scores are mapped to their associated, primary SDGs
• Capitals
Scores: ESG scores are mapped to associated
natural, human and social capitals
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Overall Guidance
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• Answer the questions in any sequence: Use the Next and Previous buttons in the tool bars
to navigate through the
questions, replacing the sample answers in the yellow cells with your choices
and data.
The progress bar in the
left-hand corner of the bottom tool bar shows where you are in the question
set.
• Estimates: If you are not sure of
the answer, estimates are okay. Just be sure to document your
estimation methodology, data
sources, and assumptions so that they can be improved later and
could be assured by a third
party.
• Weighting: Users can weight the assessed
scores, on the ESG Scores and SDG Scores pages.
• Tailoring
the tool: Users should use the Excel version of
this tool if they need to modify / tailor
it to suit their
purposes.
• Saving
and sharing results: Users can send a copy of the
completed assessment to themselves or
to someone else. Enter the
recipient's email address in the box below and click the "Submit"
button.
We recommend that users send
it to themselves, review and edit it as they would any .pdf document,
and then decide how much they
forward to others.
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Collaboration /
Sharing
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This online version was
created using SpreadsheetConverter (SSC). Its master copy is hosted
in the SSC cloud. When users
access it and use it, they actually work with a copy of it in their
browser, not with the master copy
in the SSC cloud. All user input and changes are stored in
the user's browser. All this
magically happens, automatically.
For users to collaborate with
colleagues, they need to create their unique version of the tool in
the SSC cloud. Then, they and
their colleagues can access it and their combined changes are
automatically stored in their
shared unique version. Think of it as an SSC version of Google Sheets.
Instructions on how to create and
share a unique copy of this online tool are available at the SSC link,
below. Real-time Sync has already
been activated, as indicated by the Real-time Sync button
in the right-hand corner of the
toolbar, at the bottom of all screens.
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SSC guidance on how to set up
a unique, shared copy of the tool
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Legend
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Light purple fields are auto-calculated
based on the content of yellow fields.
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White fields are used for instructions,
explanations, or labels for adjacent fields
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Light-blue fields with a "?" have explanations for
adjacent fields. Mouse-over the "?" to reveal the guidance.
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Feedback
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This tool is subject to ongoing development. Feedback and
suggestions for improvement are welcome.
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Please send feedback to
[email protected].
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Terms
of Use
This
tool was developed by Bob Willard / Sustainability Advantage. It is based on
B Lab's SDG Action Manager and the
Future-Fit Business Benchmark. The
tool is published under a Creative
Commons-Attribution ShareAlike 4.0
International license. Users are free to Share (copy and redistribute the material
in any medium or format) and
Adapt (remix, transform, and build
upon) the material for any purpose,
even commercially.
Use of the tool is at the user's
own risk. Sustainability Advantage shall accept no liability in respect of
any business, lending,
or investment decisions which
users choose to base in whole or in part on the use of this tool or its
outputs.
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