LONDON, ON, July 20, 2011 - -
Executives looking for the best ways to measure and value their
company's impact on the environment need look no further than a new
report produced by the Network for Business Sustainability.
Called "Measuring and
Valuing Environmental Impacts," the report is
specifically designed to help senior executives and decision-makers
new to sustainability choose the right tools to measure their
company's environmental impact.
Growing public awareness of
environmental issues and increasing government oversight have
motivated companies to measure their environmental impacts, but
this interest has also contributed to the proliferation of tools
available to measure such impacts. Managers can become confounded
by the vast array of options.
"This report is a high-level guide,"
explains Dr. Tima Bansal, executive director of NBS and a leading
researcher in the area of business sustainability, " that
recommends tools and additional resources for measuring and valuing
environmental impacts, including an actionable four-step process
."
The report also identifies the pros
and cons of the most common tools, enabling managers to select
among them depending on their specific needs.
The report is a condensed version of
NBS's systematic review of the entire body of research on measuring
and valuing environmental impacts. Synthesizing data from 180
studies and 20 tools, the review presents the most comprehensive
compilation of high-quality knowledge on this topic to date.
Excerpt
Step 1.
Define Success - Measuring your environmental impacts is a
means to an end-providing you a tool to help gauge progress towards
your goals. So before measuring anything, define success. What
goals do you want to achieve? How can your long-term goals be
broken into interim targets? For instance, progress towards a goal
of carbon neutrality might involve reducing carbon emissions by 10
percent in the first year.
Step 2:
Decide What to Measure - Once you have identified your
goals, decide which impacts need to be measured. Recognize that
measuring all impacts is likely unnecessary and inefficient.
Step 3:
Determine How to Measure and Value Impacts - Various
measurement tools and methodologies have been developed to help
managers measure more holistically. The two most common tools for
measuring environmental impacts are life cycle analysis and
environmental footprint. Financials are the common language of
business. Translating environmental measures into financial values
helps managers better understand the implications of environmental
impacts and make informed decisions,
Step 4:
Incorporate Environmental Measures into Decision-Making -
Unless your primary goal is to improve your firm's environmental
performance on select criteria, measuring and valuing is not the
end point in the process.
Dr. Pamela Kaval was the lead
researcher on this report. Before becoming a consultant in the
United States, Kaval was an associate professor at the Waikato
Management School at New Zealand's Waikato University.
Kaval was supported by the project's
guidance committee, which included Karen Clarke-Whistler (TD Bank
Group), Andrew Wilczynski (TELUS), Blair Feltmate (Univ rsity of
Waterloo), Luc Robitaille (Holcim) and Dror Etzion (McGill
University).
About the Network for Business
Sustainability - The Network for Business Sustainability is a
Canadian not-for-profit organization that connects thousands of
researchers and business leaders worldwide, with the goal of
creating new, sustainable business models for the 21st century.