Practical Sustainability Strategies, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 21Sustainability Metrics for Improving Impact

Sustainability metrics are a combination of economic, social, and environmental indicators related to performance and stakeholder perceptions. The term “metric” encompasses any way of measuring performances, which can be adopted during different stages of the decision-making process, in order to minimize the impact of the decision, as well as after, so as to reduce and improve the actual situation.

It is hard to develop a metric, which can be relevant for all sectors or situations, and therefore a unique metric for sustainability. In the last years particularly there has been a flourishing of different certifications and standards, concerning all possible issues within sustainability. As proof of this there are numerous and different metrics, which can be used to quantify sustainability, and most of the time, just some of its aspects. Some of the most recognized worldwide are the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standard and the ones released by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 14000, 14046:2018, 14006).

Measuring sustainability is one of the (endless) challenges that companies, as well as other types of organizations, are facing nowadays. Since the concept of sustainability is not yet transferable into quantitative data, the consequence of this is a higher uncertainty concerning the method to apply, and this, until now, has facilitated the proliferation of tools to measure different aspects of sustainability, ...