By Zoe Le Grand, Principal Sustainability Advisor, Forum For The Future on Fri, 28/08/2015 - 10:57

This article was originally published by Forum For The Future and is republished with permission.

7 principles for demonstrating your organisation’s positive impact

Bees have been in the news over the last few years like never before. Dramatic and unexpected bee colony die-offs have been labelled by over-zealous sub editors as “beepocalypse” or “beemageddon”. The total decline of bees wouldn’t just be a disaster for their species, it would also cause a crisis in ecosystems across the world. Flying from flower to flower, the mighty bee takes the nectar it needs to help sustain the colony, while at the same time transferring pollen from one flower to the next and perpetuating the life of the host. The outcome: a flourishing eco system and a contented bee. Happily, in some places, things, are looking up for bee colonies as there are some signs of recovery.

So, what has this got to do with sustainability leadership, I hear you ask? Well, what if organisations were to behave more like bees? What if they were to use the services of the environment – such as the air and water – and leave them in a better state than when they found them, just as the bee leaves the flowers? What if they were to go one step further by restoringthe environment and helping people and communities to enhance their skills and build their local economy at the same time?  Could they, in effect, put more back into the environment or society than they take out, with an overall - or ‘net’ – positive impact?

It is an ambition that a group of leading organisations made up of BT, Capgemini, Dell, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue, IKEA Group, Kingfisher, Pepsico, SKF, The Crown Estate and TUI Group all have in common.  In 2013, Forum for the Future, WWF and The Climate Group brought these organisations together into the Net Positive Group with the aim of encouraging others to take up the Net Positive mantle.

How to demonstrate your Net Positive impact

Any organisation looking to “go Net Positive” will quickly realise that quantifying its ambitions is complicated; indeed, measuring impact is something that the Net Positive Group has been grappling with since its inception two years ago. Today the group launches its new report,Measuring your way to Net Positive, which includes seven principles to help you get started:

1. Transparency. Net Positive measurement requires a considerable number of calculations, assumptions, approximations and use of various sources of data. Rules and standards cannot be developed for every eventuality, but being transparent will enable others to compare and contrast and thereby allow appropriate rules to emerge. For instance, BT has published the methodology it used to calculate its steps towards its Net Positive ambition.
2. Consistency. Capturing positive and negative impacts in a consistent way and across the value chain allows organisations to compare like with like. For example, if you’re looking at the carbon saved by a product when used by a customer (carbon footprint avoided), you also need to look at the carbon it took to produce the product (carbon footprint across the value chain).
3. Completeness. Where information isn’t available for a material impact area it is better to use a conservative estimate than to leave a gap. Be transparent about assumptions and lay out intentions for acquiring this data.
4. Keep different types of impacts separate. We don’t yet have a clear understanding of how to balance or trade off different impacts against each other (e.g. water vs social), so compare them at an individual project level but keep them separate. For instance, the social value of employee training will not make up for deforestation.  As organisations collect, analyse and use Net Positive information, this will enable us all to better understand the relative importance of these impact areas.
5. Keep positive and negative impacts separate. Positive impacts don’t always compensate for negative impacts (e.g. high levels of staff training don’t compensate for poor working conditions). As a society we don’t yet fully understand how to evaluate positive and negative impacts, so compare them at an individual project level and report totals or ratios, but do also disclose them separately.
6. Use existing methods where possible. Although Net Positive is a new way of doing business, there are a number of tried and tested methods. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, for example, can be useful when analysing Net Positive carbon impacts.
7. Sharing data is vital. As Net Positive evolves, so will our understanding of data needs. Sharing data and building up libraries of information will accelerate this process and avoid wasted time and effort. For example, organisations in similar sectors with similar supply chains will need similar data about average carbon or resource use. One example of this is the Crown Estate’s Total Contribution report, which includes data on everything from the economic value of their developments to the amount of CO2 sequestered in their estate.   

Measuring your way to Net Positive also offers guidance and tips on the key management steps that you will need to take on your Net Positive journey, such as how to assess materiality and measure impact and outcomes. It also provides guidance on specific impact areas, including carbon and water. 

Avoid the greenwash

If you are serious about becoming Net Positive and have set your ambition in place, you will want to tell others about it credibly, authentically and without being accused of greenwash.  To help you, the Net Positive Group has created a communications workstream report, Communicating Net Positive, which has a handy checklist for organisations that want to shout about their positive impacts in a clear and compelling way.

Next Steps

Today’s report should be seen as a work in progress, and we’ll be testing it with organisations who are interested in Net Positive over the next month or so

We also need more organisations to get on board and make these kind of ambitious commitments. The Net Positive Group will be working together with other organisations who are active in this space over the next few months to devise a plan for how we can help the Net Positive movement to go to scale.

What can you do?

If you would like to know more about how to demonstrate your Net Positive impact and communicate it in a clear and credible way, then downloading the Measuring your way to Net Positive and Communicating Net Positive reports from our project page is a great way to get started. You will also find other resources on the project page, including a handy slide deck to help you explain what a Net Positive approach means and a link to the Net Positive Group’s 2014 report, which includes 12 principles that characterise a Net Positive approach.

If you would like more information, or to get involved, please get in touch with Zoe Le Grand.