Sustainable Business Handbook
Drive action with strategy
Building a clear sustainability strategy is essential for businesses to focus on topics most relevant to their operations and stakeholders. It ensures efforts deliver maximum impact by leveraging strengths and addressing weaknesses.
Start by identifying priorities through a materiality assessment and align targets with these focus areas. Develop SMART targets—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound—to guide progress. Align goals with industry standards, stakeholder expectations, and regulatory requirements for credibility. For environmental goals, consider science-based targets to meet global climate commitments.
Create actionable plans to build on strengths and address gaps, assigning responsibilities and timelines. Regularly review and update the strategy to stay aligned with evolving priorities and external requirements, driving meaningful progress
Get Started
Set clear goals and targets around your top three priorities. Align with science-based frameworks, customer expectations, and industry benchmarks. Develop actionable plans for each target, assigning timelines and responsibilities to ensure effective implementation and measurable progress.
Using Self Assessment as a tool to inform your strategy
Conducting a sustainability self-assessment can help businesses understand where they are doing well and where they might need to improve, focusing particularly on the most material topics as identified through a double materiality assessment. This can help to ensure that strategies are designed to drive impact where it is most needed within an organisation.
There are various self assessment tools available including the B-Corp Impact Assessment for a comprehensive review or the simpler SBA Scorecard.