We often get asked what leads to strong performance in Corporate Responsibility (CR). What are the key factors that indicate a company is built for sustainable success? What do I need to get right?
With these questions in mind, we set about identifying the key criteria that indicate a business is built for sustainable, growth long-term. We sought to identify both the behaviours that companies should exhibit and the issues that they should be addressing.
We looked at external standards like Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), the UN Global Compact, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for inspiration. We also mined the experience of our teams in offices around the world.
All in all, it’s boiled down to 10 aspects that we believe contributes to sustainable success. The aspects are packaged into our Better Business Benchmarking tool and include:
- Strategy, Governance, and Transparency
- Ethics
- Community Investment
- Products
- Environment
- Labour Standards
- Human Rights
- Stakeholder Engagement
- Supply Chain
- Economic Impacts
We score and analyse companies against each of these criteria in order to provide insights and recommendations on how one company compares to others. Typically, the assessment involves over 1,000 specific datapoints behind each of these headline topics.
We don’t know what the future holds, but we believe companies that are able to manage and measure their performance in these 10 areas are those that are most likely to thrive.
Corporate Citizenship’s offers a range of benchmarking services. Our Better Business Benchmark provides a tool to assess how companies are addressing 10 essential aspects we believe indicate a business is built for sustainable growth. For more on Corporate Citizenship’s suite of benchmarking services, click here.