Date: 2024-07-26 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021969
Original article: https://impactentrepreneur.com/measuring-impact-with-the-sustainable-development-goals/
Burgess COMMENTARY
There is a lot of good writing about sustainability, impact, the SDGs and so on ... but this does not mean it is good communication about progress and performance.
There is a multipage report accessible from this article ... the 2022 Okta for Good Impact Report ... and while it reads quite well, it does not tell me much about the actual impact that Okta for Good is achieving or the resources actually consumed in doing this work ... in other words everything that would be in a good management report is missing. The report is much more a marketing document than a management / performance analysis document.
A second observation concerns the use of the UN's Sustainable Devel;opment Goals (SDGs) as a framework for analysis. There are 17 SDGs and they are essentially incoherent as a set. They are connected to many hundreds of goals and targets, some of which are consistent with the goals and targets of the previous Millenium Development Goals (MDGs0 launched by the UN for the period 2000 to 2015. There were only 8 goals in the MDG set ... which was already too many.
Both the MDGs and the SDGs have made it possible for companies to talk at length about their commitment to the goals while doing very little to actually change their behavior in a meaningful way.
In my view, the SDGs have been further undermined by the massively increased popularity of ESG as a talking point. ESG stands for Environment, Society and Governance and is being embraced by a lot of investment managers and big companies. Back in the 1990s the concept of a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) was poularised referring to People (or Society) Profit (Economic Performance) and Planet (Environment) and for a while it got considerable traction. It went out of fashion rather rapidly for reasons that have not been made clear.
My view is that TBL made it clear that there were signioficant trade-offs between high profits and good social impact and good environmental impact ... something that investors did not want to hear, nor the vast bulk of corporate C-level policy makers who were increasinlgy being rewarded in large part via stock ownership.
The MDGs were a better talking point for corporate performance than the TBL and the MDGs drowned out the TBL.
Later the SDGs enabled another enhancement to talking points that did not do negative impact on profit performance
And then ESG came on the scene ... an analytical framing that is simply incomplete and ignores the core goal of for-profit business organizations which is profit. I simply cannot understand how ESG has become popular and widely used by both investors and by corporate managers unless it is something to do with making sure that the linklage between profit performance, social performance and environmental performance ramains as blurred as it possible can be.
Peter Burgess
Written by Caroline Barlerin, Erin Felter and Melinh Rozen
March 16, 2022
Measuring Impact SDGs - 02
Companies large and small are feeling the pull from stakeholders to measure and communicate their impact. Investors, customers, employees, and communities are driving a wave of ESG focus for companies, one in which data and outcomes are the new currency. The field of Impact Measurement and Management is evolving quickly – as it must! Despite existing standards and emerging work being done through Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTI), Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), and many others, there is not yet a GAAP-level adoption of accounting for a company’s progress against all of its social and environmental targets.
How can companies keep up? One option is to leverage the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) as a broad framework for impact measurement and management. More mature companies — such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Salesforce — communicate to varying degrees their impact against all of the SDGs.
For smaller or earlier stage companies, such alignment can be daunting. The SDGs are so broad and all encompassing; how can a smaller or newer organization speak to them all?
The SDGs are so broad and all encompassing; how can a smaller or newer organization speak to them all?The good news is you don’t have to jump in feet first, commit to all 17 SDGs, or wait until your programs are fully mature. The SDG framework is broad enough to have resonance across industries, and to grow with your company. Yet, they are specific enough to be meaningful. Most importantly, they are straightforward enough to translate with your key stakeholders: customers, shareholders, employees, partners, and communities. Here are six steps to getting started with the SDGs.
1. Know your why
Before committing to the SDGs or any framework be clear about your intended impact, and center the needs of your key partners and stakeholders. Who are you trying to reach? How do they want to consume information? Beyond communication, is there an opportunity to use the framework to develop and inform your impact strategy and management?
Person in abstract landscape
2. Gather input
As human-centered designers, we believe the key insight can come from anywhere. Be sure to gather diverse sources and types of input. We have found the outside-in/inside-out approach to be helpful.
Inside out: Start with a self-assessment. This might include interviews or a workshop with key internal stakeholders such as social impact team members or other internal business partners like Environmental Health and Safety, Government Affairs, or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. It can also include reviewing the data that you already collect.
Outside in: Then validate your initial hypotheses by interviewing external experts or key partners who know your work. Desk research such as peer or partner audits are also helpful: What do your partners and peers focus on and what metrics do they track?
3. Map it out
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the 17 SDGs and tangled up in their interconnections. We’ve found that visualizing your work in the context of SDGs helps identify which SDGs are most relevant to your team and organization.
We’ve found that visualizing your work in the context of SDGs helps identify which SDGs are most relevant to your team and organization.Depending on where you sit in the company, this can start with a value chain map noting what parts of the value chain link to particular SDGs. For the Okta for Good team, we created a heatmap visualizing existing programs and partners’ work against the 17 SDGs. This allowed us to identify and quantify the clusters of SDGs where our work has been focused, and that we could authentically speak to.
The SDGs have indicator level metrics, but they are often measured at the country level. Thus, we have to identify which metrics are relevant for your particular organization and map them to relevant Goals. You can leverage an externally validated database like IRIS+ to browse and confirm which specific metrics align to a given Goal.
4. Know your audience
With whom and how will you be communicating your impact measurement? Will this go on your website? Impact report? Blogs? If you are going with a broad audience that includes community members and employees, you may want to provide additional context about what the SDGs are, and why and how your organization is adopting them. If it is a more specific audience (analysts, partners) that may be more familiar with the SDGs, you might want to emphasize the specific aligned metrics you will be reporting on and why. Again, this is not one size fits all, and you will have to make some judgments that work for you.
Man reaching for star in colorful house
5. Start small
While it may not be reasonable for all companies to measure, report, or manage against all 17 SDGs, or even practice all 12 actions recommended in the SDG Impact Standards for Enterprises; companies of all sizes and shapes can begin to adopt specific Goals and actions as a way to track, communicate, and be accountable for their impact.
Consider emissions reporting — many companies began by measuring their Scope 1 emissions only. We now see companies measuring Scope 2 and even Scope 3 emissions. Over time, we have seen companies evolve from measuring to reporting to managing by these metrics. As your company matures, you can think of your impact measurement and management similarly.
Over time, we have seen companies evolve from measuring to reporting to managing by these metrics. As your company matures, you can think of your impact measurement and management similarly.For Okta’s latest impact report, we opted to only report on those SDG that were directly attributable to either Okta’s contributions (i.e. Scope 1 impact) or our partners’ (i.e. Scope 2 impact). Moreover, for our first report, it was important that a) we not increase the reporting burden on our grantees, and b) that we make commitments within our remit as the Okta for Good team to realize. That’s why we are starting with the Goals and metrics that our partners were already tracking, or that our small team is readily able to track on our own.
6. Commit to continual improvement
The field of Impact Measurement and Management is rapidly evolving beyond legal reporting requirements. Each of us as practitioners has the opportunity to contribute to that evolution. Let’s not settle for cherry picking a few SDG’s and reporting only the feel-good metrics, but commit to continually re-evaluating the metrics we track, managing our performance against those metrics, and being mindful of and taking actions to mitigate any unintended negative impacts we might be creating along the way.
This is the process we followed. As part of our own commitment to continual improvement, we’d love to hear your feedback. What has worked in your organization? What challenges have you come across?
This essay is part of the “Why IM” thought leadership series — a set of perspectives and calls to action to mainstream the adoption of Impact Management. The series is an initiative of Impacting Together, a cross-sector network of practitioners aiming to break down silos across sectors and practice areas to share tools, solutions, and frameworks that can advance deep, durable impact. Previous articles in the series:
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- Caroline Barlerin ... Caroline Barlerin is the Founder of Platypus Advisors. Passionate about what can be created at the intersection of social good and technology, Caroline has been a leading voice for social responsibility in the tech industry. She has held Social Impact leadership roles at HP, Twitter, and Eventbrite.
- Erin Felter ... Erin Baudo Felter is the Vice President of Social Impact and Sustainability at Okta where she leads the company's strategy to drive long-term value for people and the planet. Erin's responsibilities include management of Okta's ESG, social impact, philanthropy, tech for good, and sustainability efforts.
- Melinh Rozen ... Melinh Rozen is a Strategy Lead at Platypus Advisors, a social impact advisory that helps leaders across sectors do social good better. She has experience in house and advising with tech companies, nonprofits, and social enterprises of all sizes and stripes.