Introduction
Being responsible has never been more important, and data is one of the best ways to measure your company’s impact. But what does that mean? How do you start measuring your products or services? Is it even possible to gather reliable data about something as complex as sustainability? We compiled this guide to help you figure out how to approach these questions and begin tracking your company’s environmental impact—and ultimately make it better.
A Guide to Measuring and Reporting for the Responsible Company
What is a responsible company?
A responsible company is one that measures and reports on its social, environmental and economic impacts. Measuring allows you to track progress over time, which can help you identify opportunities for improvement. Reporting publicly helps build trust with investors, customers and other stakeholders by demonstrating how you are managing risks and delivering value in line with your strategy.
Introduction
This guide is for anyone who wants to measure and report on their company’s social and environmental performance. It was created by the Social Innovation Lab, a unit of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA), in collaboration with PwC US. RPA works with companies that want to improve their impact while building competitive advantage; PwC helps them do this through its expertise in strategy, operations, risk management, tax and audit.
Guiding Principles and Considerations
A responsible company uses data to measure whether its products or services are being used in a sustainable way.
It also uses data to measure the impact of its products or services on society, customers and employees. And it measures the effects of those impacts: how people feel about them; whether they’re able to use them comfortably; if they like them enough to recommend them to others.
Measurement Systems
- The first step in measuring and reporting is to create a measurement system. While this can be done at any point in your business’s life cycle, it’s best to start early so that you have time to refine your metrics before they become too ingrained in the culture of your company.
- The key is to measure both inputs (what you put into something) and outputs (what comes out). This can apply both internally within an organization or externally towards customers or other stakeholders.
To understand how this works in practice, let’s take two examples:
- A coffee shop measures how much coffee they brew every day by weighing their grinders before and after each shift; then they multiply those figures by their estimated yield per pound of beans
- A clothing manufacturer tracks how many garments are produced per hour using a stopwatch timer attached directly onto each sewing machine
Effective Data Management
Data management is a process of collecting, storing, and analyzing data. It includes creating a data strategy; developing a governance model for your organization’s information assets; developing policies and procedures for managing them; creating a quality program that ensures that your company’s data remains accurate and reliable over time.
A good place to start with this process is by learning more about what makes up an effective information security program in general–including what it means for an organization to have strong authentication controls in place (for example: multi-factor authentication) as well as how they can ensure that employees are not sharing passwords between systems or accounts because this would make it easier for someone outside the company who has access through another employee’s account could gain unauthorized access into sensitive systems containing confidential information about customers.”
Inputs and Outputs
The inputs and outputs of a company are measured in terms of sustainability. An input is any resource used by the company, such as materials or energy. An output is a product or service that it produces for sale to customers.
For example, if you own an electronics store, your inputs include things like computers and televisions; these are resources that you use to make your business run (and they can be measured in terms of their sustainability). The electronics themselves are also considered outputs–they’re products that people buy from you!
Reporting Products and Services
Reporting products and services is a critical part of the responsible reporting process. It’s also one of the most difficult to get right, since there are so many different types of data points that need to be tracked and reported on in order to truly understand how your business impacts the world around it.
In general, there are three main types of reporting products:
- Products – the physical or digital things your company makes or sells (e.g., computers)
- Services – anything else you provide (e.g., accounting services)
- Assets – things owned by your company that have some sort of value (e.g., real estate holdings)
Challenging Data Questions and Barriers
Data questions can be challenging and barriers to measuring and reporting. But don’t let that stop you! Here are some tips for overcoming them:
- Ask yourself: “What am I trying to measure?” If it’s not clear, then try asking yourself some more specific questions like: “How much is this costing us?” or “How much revenue has this generated?”. This will help narrow down the scope of your problem so that it becomes easier to solve.
- Find out what other companies are doing in similar situations as yours (e.g., competitors). You might find that they’ve already solved similar problems by using certain methods that could work for your company too!
The responsible company uses data to measure whether its products or services are being used in a sustainable way.
Data is the lifeblood of a responsible company. It can be used to measure whether your products or services are being used in a sustainable way, and it can also help you understand how the people who use them are impacted by those products or services. In this section we’ll look at some examples of how companies have used data to measure their impact on society, people and the environment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the responsible company uses data to measure whether its products or services are being used in a sustainable way. The company can use this information to make changes that will improve its performance and help it achieve long-term goals.
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