Quantifying corporate sustainability efforts

In evaluating sustainability efforts, measuring dollars made or saved is a solid metric. Attitudes and behaviors are harder to quantify.

The National Association of Environmental Management’s Environmental Health & Safety and Sustainability Staffing and Structure Benchmark Report describes the broad spectrum of activities generally led by EHS and sustainability officers.

These range from the more quantifiable (EPA compliance, recycling, energy efficiency) to the less quantifiable (social responsibility, sustainability marketing, stakeholder engagement around sustainability).

The metrics you establish will be the ones you measure and improve on. You can use them to set and achieve goals, a key to long-term success in the organization.

Aaron Tilley of GreenBiz.com reported this month that buyers for retailers as large as Walmart and as small as Annie’s Homegrown of Berkeley, Calif., are using scorecards to help make their suppliers more sustainable.

“A couple of tangible tools and metrics have entirely shifted the momentum,” said Brittni Furrow, Walmart’s director of Sustainability for Food and Consumables.